Preamble

[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair.]

WELSH LANGUAGE.

Mr. John: I ask leave to present a petition from residents of the Principality of Wales, including Monmouthshire, who as such cherish its language, culture and tradition. The petition says:
Wherefore your petitioners pray that your honourable House will take the necessary steps with all convenient speed to secure the passage of an Act of Parliament placing the Welsh language on a footing of equality with the English language in all proceedings connected with the administration of justice and of public services in Wales. Your petitioners are in duty bound and will ever pray for that to be brought about.

Oral Answers to Questions — FRENCH SOMALILAND.

Captain McEwen: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he can make any statement on the present position at Jibuti?

The Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (Mr. Eden): As my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State informed my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Ayr Burghs (Sir T. Moore) on 24th July, His Majesty's Government have been obliged to take appropriate steps to ensure that the resources and territory of French Somaliland are not placed at the disposal of our enemies. To that statement I have at present nothing to add.

Captain McEwen: Can my right hon. Friend say what approximately is the French population, including women and children?

Mr. Eden: I could not without notice.

Oral Answers to Questions — CHINA.

ATLANTIC CHARTER.

Mr. Mander: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he will consider the advisability of ascertaining the views of the Chinese Government on the Atlantic Charter?

Mr. Eden: All reports indicate that the Anglo-American declaration was welcomed by the Chinese Government. His Majesty's Ambassador at Chungking telegraphed that it had been warmly received there and that the Chinese Minister for Foreign Affairs had issued a statement expressing his gratification. In the circumstances I do not think it necessary to pursue by hon. Friend's suggestion.

WAR WITH JAPAN.

Dr. Russell Thomas: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he has recently been in communication with the Government of the United States of America with a view to endeavouring to reach a peaceful settlement of the Sino-Japanese war?

Mr. Eden: No, Sir.

Dr. Thomas: Will the right hon. Gentleman be prepared to say that, if he has any information on such a subject in future, he will be ready at the right time to bring it to the notice of the House?

Mr. Mander: Is it not the case that the war could be brought to an end directly the Japanese evacuated Chinese territory?

REPUBLIC (FOUNDATION ANNIVERSARY).

Mr. Price: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether, on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the foundation of the Chinese Republic, he will send to Marshal Chiang Kai-shek a message of congratulation from His Majesty's Government?

Mr. Eden: Yes, Sir. A message of warm congratulation and good wishes for the future of China has been sent to the Chinese Government by His Majesty's Government.

IRAN (LEGATIONS).

Mr. Mander: asked the Secretary of State of Foreign Affairs whether he will consider the advisability of insisting on


the closing of those legations in Teheran of Powers known to be under Axis influence; and in this connection what restrictions have been imposed?

Mr. Eden: My hon. Friend may be assured that this matter has been fully considered and the necessary action taken. The Hungarian, Bulgarian and Rumanian Legations have all been closed, and their staffs left Persia when the German and Italian Legations were expelled. In the case of certain other Legations, cypher and bag facilities have been withdrawn.

ABYSSINIA (ITALIAN CIVILIANS).

Mr. Mander: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs the position with regard to the negotiations for the removal of all Italian civilians from Abyssinia?

Mr. Eden: The position remains as described in the reply that I gave to my right hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Mr. Wedgwood) on both September.

Mr. Mander: Cannot the right hon. Gentleman say whether any progress has been made? He indicated on the previous occasion that, if the Italian Government did not send ships, other steps would have to be taken.

Mr. Eden: The position is that we made this very generous offer, but alternative steps are being considered. The hon. Member will realise that it is not an easy matter to handle.

Mr. Wedgwood: Is it not obvious that if the Italians do not send ships to take their nationals away, they may prefer them to remain there until the end of the war?

Mr. Eden: There is certainly no question of their being in a position to fulfil the kind of result to which the right hon. Gentleman refers.

Mr. Noel-Baker: In view of the great desirability that this evacuation should be rapid and complete in order to promote economic readjustment, will the right hon. Gentleman do everything he can to expedite it?

Mr. Eden: I entirely share the hon. Gentleman's desire, of course. The difficulty is one of means and resources.

VISCOUNT HALIFAX (STATEMENT).

Mr. Wedgwood: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he will publish as a White Paper the full text of the declaration made recently by Lord Halifax concerning military action by this country on the Continent of Europe?

Mr. Eden: The occasion to which I think my right hon. Friend refers was an informal one, and I doubt whether any full text exists. The circumstances do not seem to warrant the step suggested.

Mr. Mander: Is it not desirable that this unfortunate indiscretion should be forgotten as soon as possible?

Mr. Eden: It seems to me that an exaggerated significance has been attached to it.

Oral Answers to Questions — ROYAL AIR FORCE.

OFFICERS (PIPE SMOKING IN PUBLIC).

Captain Plugge: asked the Secretary of State for Air the reasons governing the regulation that Royal Air Force officers must not smoke pipes in public?

The Joint Under-Secretary of State for Air (Captain Harold Balfour): The practice referred to, while generally discouraged, is not the subject of any regulation in the Royal Air Force.

Major Markham: Why should it be discouraged? Is it not a direct reflection on the officers of one Service against those of another?

Captain Balfour: There is no question of disciplinary action or of regulation. It is a matter of taste and opinion.

Major Markham: Surely it is going to the limit of absurdity that in these little matters there should be this dictatorial and didactic attitude on the part of senior officers?

Captain Balfour: There is no dictatorial attitude. I have made it clear that there is no question of discipline or regulation. It is a matter left purely to the taste of the officers.

Mr. Lawson: Would the Air Ministry be just as pleased to see a man smoke a pipe in public as a cigarette?

ROYAL OBSERVER CORPS (UNIFORMS).

Mr. Sorensen: asked the Secretary of State for Air whether he will reconsider the question of issuing uniforms to the Royal Observer Corps, particularly in view of the approach of winter and the desirability of the Government accepting responsibility for providing members of this corps with warm uniforms to mitigate the effect of exposure?

Captain Balfour: This matter is being reconsidered. I should add that I cannot accept the suggestion that the clothing already in issue to members of the Royal Observer Corps does not provide adequate protection against the weather.

Mr. Sorensen: Does the right hon. and gallant Gentleman appreciate that complaints would not have been made by members of the Observer Corps if they were satisfied? Does not the first statement of the right hon. and gallant Gentleman mean that in due course these observers could have issued to them the clothing that they desire?

Captain Balfour: The special clothing provided consists of waterproof and fleece-lined storm coats, oilskins, sou'-westers and gum boots These are all available for personnel on duty. There are other grounds for a reconsideration of the problem which I will not go into in answer to a Question.

COASTAL COMMAND (PAMPHLET).

Commander Bower: asked the Secretary of State for Air whether he will consider the publication of a pamphlet similar to the "Battle of Britain" and "Bomber Command," concerning the operations of the Royal Air Force Coastal Command, having regard to the fact that the latter command were engaged in active operations against the enemy from the first day of the war?

Captain Balfour: A pamphlet dealing with the work of Coastal Command is in course of preparation.

Oral Answers to Questions — WAR TRANSPORT

BRITISH WOMEN, CANADA AND UNITED STATES (SHIPPING FACILITIES).

Miss Cazalet: asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of War

Transport whether special shipping facilities will be granted to British women wishing to return to this country from the United States of America and Canada?

The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of War Transport (Colonel Llewellin): In view of the heavy demand for shipping for military and other Government requirements, I regret that special provision for British women wishing to travel from Canada and the United States to this country cannot be arranged for the time being.

Miss Cazalet: In view of the fact that British women are not allowed to take up any employment in America or to receive any money from this side, would it not be possible for those who wish to return to be granted A priority?

Colonel Llewellin: I am afraid not. We have such pressure on our cabin accommodation to bring back Government officials and other persons that I am afraid we cannot give that priority. I wish we could.

Miss Eleanor Rathbone: Will an exception be made in the case of highly qualified women whose services would be particularly useful or where there are special grounds of hardship in remaining across the water?

Colonel Llewellin: We do everything we can to bring them back. There is a system of working out priorities with our agents on the other side, both in Canada and in the United States. Such passages as are available are allocated according to a system of priority.

Mr. George Griffiths: Would it be possible to bring these women back and put them on war work?

Colonel Llewellin: No, it is a question of priority. I am dealing with the question of cabin space in ships coming across the Atlantic.

ONE-CLASS RAILWAY TRAINS.

Mr. Tinker: asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of War Transport whether it is his intention to extend the one-class railway travelling outside the London area; and, if so, will he say when and to what extent?

Colonel Llewellin: No, Sir.

Mr. Tinker: Since this has been so successful in London, cannot it be extended to other parts of the country?

Colonel Llewellin: London is a different problem. In London we do it with trains that start or finish their journey within a special area. In the provinces there arc very few such trains. Most of the trains run right through, and what we call in London suburban traffic is dealt with in most provincial towns by trams or buses.

Mr. Tinker: Will the right hon. and gallant Gentleman send some of his people from his office to travel on these trains and get opinions as to what people think should be done, and I will depend on that?

Colonel Llewellin: I do not think so. The people in our office have a great deal to do at the present moment. We are very well advised by our Regional Transport Commissioners and others in the provincial districts.

MERCANTILE MARINE (SICK PAY).

Mr. R. J. Taylor: asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of War Transport whether he is aware that when sailors are off sick they receive only National Health Insurance benefit, while officers, mates and engineers, when sick, are made up to full wages out of pool; and will he have inquiries made into the reason why such difference exists?

Colonel Llewellin: Under the agreements recently negotiated by the National Maritime Board, officers who are sick receive 85 per cent. of basic pay for a period of two months in any 12 months. I am informed that this arrangement was made because, unlike the ratings, many officers are not covered by the National Health Insurance Scheme.

NEWS BROADCASTS (SUNDAY NEWSPAPER ARTICLES).

Mr. Marcus Samuel: asked the Minister of Information at what date the practice commenced of reading extracts from articles in the Sunday newspapers as part of the British Broadcasting Corporation news bulletins; and whether he will take steps to prevent strongly political propagandist views from being given further publicity over the wireless in the news?

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Information (Mr. Thurtle): The B.B.C.'s practice of quoting from the British Press, either by individual extract or by Press summaries, is of long standing. The choice of such references is determined by their value as news, and my right hon. Friend is not prepared to impose any further general rule regarding this practice.

Mr. Samuel: Has my hon. Friend made inquiries with regard to the publicity given by the B.B.C. to an article in "Reynolds," which was strong Communist propaganda in a paper with the smallest circulation?

Mr. Thurtle: I presume the article in question was included on account of its news value. My right hon. Friend has complete confidence in the objectivity of the B.B.C. officials who are doing this work.

Mr. Crowder: Can my hon. Friend make representations to the B.B.C. that when the news is being read the public in general want the truth and nothing but the truth and not the comments of the people who read the news or extracts from newspaper articles?

Commander Sir Archibald Southby: Is the decision as to which newspaper extracts should be read taken by the B.B.C. or by the Minister of Information?

Mr. Thurtle: It is taken by the officials of the B.B.C. and not by the Minister of Information.

Mr. Gallacher: Will the hon. Gentleman encourage the B.B.C. to advocate the lifting of the ban on the "Daily Worker" and publish extracts from that very valuable paper?

TELEGRAMS (FORCES, MIDDLE EAST).

Mr. R. J. Taylor: asked the Postmaster-General the cost of a telegram to a soldier in the Middle East from his wife or relatives?

The Postmaster-General (Mr. W. S. Morrison): Any member of the public may send a telegram to a soldier serving with the Middle East Force for a flat charge of 2s. 6d. The texts of telegrams sent by this service, which is conducted by Cable and Wirelelss, Limited, must be chosen from a list of standard phrases


and one, two or a maximum of three phrases may be used in any one message. The registered next-of-kin may send a restricted number of telegrams on matters of urgent domestic importance at the inland telegraph rate of 1d. a word. Forms for this purpose may be obtained by the next-of-kin from the Army authorities. The normal public telegraph service may also be used. The rates are: ordinary telegrams, 11d. a word; deferred telegrams, 5½d. a word; night letter telegrams, 7s. 3½d. for 25 words or less.

Mr. Taylor: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that this Question was put down because a soldier's wife was asked 9s. 6d. for a telegram that could have gone under the special rate, and will he take steps to see that in all post offices the attention of soldiers' wives is drawn to this privileged form of telegram?

Mr. Morrison: Instructions have been issued that this privileged form of telegram shall be made well known to the public, and, indeed, great use is made of it by the public. If my hon. Friend can give me particulars of the case he has in mind, I shall be glad to look into it.

Mr. Logan: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that at Liverpool telegrams have been handed in and the officials have said that they do not know whether the stations to which they were addressed were on the list; and that the telegrams have been returned after four weeks, the senders being told that the stations are not on the list? Will the right hon. Gentleman take steps to see that the officials have information as to where telegrams can be sent?

Mr. Morrison: I am aware that some telegrams have gone astray because they were insufficiently addressed. If my hon. Friend will give me particulars of what he has in mind, I will look into them.

Mr. Logan: The question I asked was whether the right hon. Gentleman was aware that at the head office in Liverpool they accepted telegrams when they did not know whether the addresses were on the list, and that at the end of four weeks the telegrams were returned and the senders informed that the addresses were not on the list? Will he see that at the head office in every town they have knowledge as to where telegrams can be sent?

Mr. Morrison: If my hon. Friend will give me particulars, I will take such steps as are necessary.

Squadron-Leader Hulbert: Does this concession apply to all His Majesty's Forces?

Mr. Morrison: Yes, Sir.

Oral Answers to Questions — GOVERNMENT DEPARTMENTS.

POST OFFICE (SALES REPRESENTATIVES).

Mr. Parker: asked the Postmaster-General whether he is aware that there is considerable feeling in the Post Office service that sales representatives, although called up or transferred for the duration to other work, are refused establishment when it would normally be granted; and whether this unfair differentiation will be terminated?

Mr. W. S. Morrison: The establishment of a number of unestablished sales representatives has been deferred owing to a redundancy on the grace of sales representative, which results from the suspension of active canvassing for the telephone service. It is true that use is being made of their services—generally speaking on duties other than those normally proper to their grade—but I regret that the redundancy within their normal sphere is an insuperable bar to their establishment.

Mr. Parker: Will the right hon. Gentleman be prepared to see representatives from the union which represent these men and discuss the matter?

Mr. Morrison: I am always willing to receive representations on behalf of the staff.

MINISTRY OF WORKS AND BUILDINGS (REGIONAL OFFICERS).

Mr. Silkin: asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Works and Buildings how many regional officers for propaganda purposes his Ministry have decided to appoint; what will be their duties; what salaries it is proposed to pay; and how these officers will be selected?

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Works and Buildings (Mr. Hicks): My Noble Friend is not yet in a position to make an announcement, but he hopes to do so shortly.

Mr. Silkin: In view of the fact that the announcement of the appointment of these


officials was made by the Minister in another place, and of the fact that the appointments are regarded by many as being totally unnecessary, will my hon. Friend give the House an opportunity of expressing an opinion before any appointments are made?

Mr. Hicks: I am quite willing to convey my hon. Friend's request to my Noble Friend.

WOMEN'S ROYAL NAVAL SERVICE.

Sir A. Southby: asked the First Lord of the Admiralty why members of the Women's Royal Naval Service receive a smaller allowance of both bacon and jam than that supplied to members of the Auxiliary Territorial Service and of the Women's Auxiliary Air Force?

The Financial Secretary to the Admiralty (Sir Victor Warrender): There is no desire that the W.R.N.S. should suffer in any way by the allowances of bacon and jam being fixed below those of any other Services, but it would be wasteful to fix the allowances to W.R.N.S.'s messes above those which have proved to be the average consumption. The authorised rates are, of course, always subject to review.

Sir A. Southby: Is my hon. Friend aware of the reply recently given in the House by the Secretary of State for War setting forth the allowances to members of the women's Services, from which it appears that a member of the Women's Royal Naval Service has a daily ration of four-sevenths of an ounce of bacon as against one-and-one-seventh to members of the other two Services, and an ounce of jam as against one-and-a-half-ounces for the other two Services? Is there any reason why women in the Senior Service should have less bacon and jam than those in the other Services?

Sir V. Warrender: As I have said, the amount issued equals the average consumption in the W.R.N.S. The House will realise that rations are drawn for messes as units, and it may be that if one member has a sweeter tooth than another, she will consume more jam in that mess than another. We do not want to issue more jam and bacon than are normally consumed, and we have had no complaints.

Sir A. Southby: Will my hon. Friend consider issuing to the W.R.N.S. the increased allowance, and see whether they eat it?

Viscountess Aston: Will my hon. Friend ask the Government what makes them think that women eat less than men? I eat far more than my husband.

NYASALAND (BAUXITE CONCESSIONS).

Mr. Creech Jones: asked the Undersecretary of State for the Colonies what are the terms of the concessions to the Anglo-American Corporation of South Africa to exploit bauxite in the Mlaye Mountain in Nyasaland; and whether any royalties or percentage of profits will be earmarked for Native welfare purposes?

The Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies (Mr. George Hall): No concession to exploit bauxite has yet been granted. The Corporation holds an exclusive prospecting licence over certain areas in the Mlanje district, but they are still engaged in exploratory work. In any concession which may be granted to the Corporation it is certainly proposed to secure from the industry an adequate contribution to the revenues of the Protectorate which will be available for social and economic developments, including social services for the benefit of Africans.

Oral Answers to Questions — WEST INDIES.

JAMAICA (LOCAL GOVERNMENT).

Mr. Creech Jones: asked the Undersecretary of State for the Colonies what proposals for the reorganisation of local government in Jamaica are being submitted by the Governor of that Colony for local consideration; and whether the Colony can have the assistance of an experienced administrator in local government from this country?

Mr. George Hall: The Local Boards have been invited to submit schemes, and one constructive scheme, drawn up by the Trelawney Board, is to be considered by a small unofficial committee appointed by the Governor. The committee's report and recommendations, after discussion by all the Local Boards, will be placed before the Legislative Council. The Governor has reported that the assist-


ance of an experienced administrator in local government would be welcomed, and this matter is engaging my Noble Friend's attention.

SHIP BUNKERING, ST. LUCIA (WOMEN).

Dr. Morgan: asked the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he is aware of the coaling system in vogue in the Island of St. Lucia, British West Indies, by which local women are employed like slaves to tramp and mount ship's gangways in scanty clothing with heavy basket loads of coal on their heads, urged on by male foremen", for the ships' bunkers; whether a system of mechanical loading has ever been proposed, if not, why not; and whether this undesirable coaling method will now be changed?

Mr. George Hall: My Noble Friend is in communication with the Governor of the Windward Islands regarding the practicability of dispensing with the employment of women in bunkering in St. Lucia. As regards the second part of the Question, the volume of bunkering is not sufficient to justify the provision of mechanical loading. Moreover, the introduction of mechanical loading would probably be opposed strenuously by the workers themselves. It would be a very doubtful benefit to St. Lucia to introduce labour-saving machinery in advance of some measure, which is not at present in sight, for employing the labour so displaced.

Dr. Morgan: In view of the absence of trade union organisation, how do the Government know that the workers themselves will object to the change in the system?

Sir Leonard Lyle: Is it not more than likely that if my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Colonies were to enter the dress-designing business in the West Indies, it would prove to be disastrous and would be hotly resented by the ladies in question?

Mr. Stephen: Would trade unionism be disastrous to the profits of the hon. Member for Bournemouth (Sir L. Lyle)?

Dr. Edith Summerskill: Does the hon. Gentleman approve of this system? We abolished this kind of thing in this country 100 years ago, and is it in accord with our democratic principle that it should continue in one of our Colonies?

Mr. Hall: Personally I do not approve of the system.

Viscountess Astor: But you are a member of the Government.

ST. KITTS (SUGAR FACTORY).

Dr. Morgan: asked the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he has considered the desirability and advisability of preparing, for the benefit of Parliament, a brief account of the finance and financial methods adopted in the formation and readjustment of the St. Kitts sugar factory according to the evidence given before the Moyne Commission in 1938; what dividend has been paid in the last three years on the real, not nominal, capital; whether steps are being taken to prevent action on similar lines in the West Indian colonies; what are the present rate of wages to the factory workers; and when was the last claim made by the workers for a wage increase?

Mr. George Hall: As the answer contains a number of figures, I will, with my hon. Friend's permission, circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Dr. Morgan: Does the answer include the present rate of wages?

Mr. Hall: Yes, Sir.

Following is the answer:

Evidence given before the Royal Commission was not sufficiently detailed to form the basis of a complete statement of the financial structure of the St. Kitts (Basseterre) Sugar Factory, Limited. The unique capital structure of the company and its very complicated history make it impossible accurately to define the real as distinct from the nominal capital. The actual profits for the last three years have been—

£


1937–38
34470


1938–39
104,646


1939–40
71,882

One half of these profits, is distributed to the "B" shareholders, that is, the planters who supply the sugar cane to the factory, and the other half, after deduction of a bonus to the staff, is distributed to the "A" shareholders, that is, the subscribers to the company's original capital of £130,000. The financial structure of the company is the outcome of special circumstances peculiar to its


history, and the question of action elsewhere in the West Indies as my hon. Friend suggests does not arise.

Present rates of wages for the factory workers are as follow:—

Average weekly wages with overtime (including 15 per cent. war bonus) are 22s. 5d. Average weekly rates without overtime vary from 14s. 46. for switchmen to 32s. for milldrivers. The war bonus is on a sliding scale and another 5 per cent. is now due. The last occasion on which the factory workers claimed wage increases was in March, 1940.

ST. CHRISTOPHER ISLAND (LAZARETTO).

Dr. Morgan: asked the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies how many inmates there are at present in the lazaretto on the Island of St. Christopher, British West Indies; whether the institutional dietary there has recently been reviewed and improved; whether treatment is proving effectual; and whether it is proposed to extend the institution?

Mr. George Hall: The information desired is not available in the Colonial Office. My Noble Friend has, however, asked for a report from the Colony on the matter, and I will communicate with my hon. Friend when the Governor's reply is received.

Dr. Morgan: I will put down another Question

UNITED STATES BASES (LABOUR CONDITIONS).

Mr. David Adams: asked the Undersecretary of State for the Colonies whether he is aware that the trades unions of Jamaica have been refused their request for consultation as to labour conditions and wages in connection with work upon the United States of America bases; and, as this attitude is contrary to the undertakings given, will he take steps to have the unions taken into consultation?

Mr. George Hall: This question was brought to my notice when I was in Jamaica. I was informed that the Colonial Government offered in February of this year to set up a consultative committee, on which the Jamaica Trade Unions Council would be represented, to deal with such matters as labour conditions and wages in connection with work on the United Stales bases. No reply had

been received from the Council to that offer when I left the Colony.

Mr. Creech Jones: Is it not a fact that negotiations between the trades unions and the United States authorities are not permitted? Will the hon. Gentleman note that the real trouble is that direct negotiations are banned, and that the trades unions want access to the authorities in order to discuss both wages and working conditions?

Mr. Hall: That matter was put to me when I met the trades unions in Jamaica, but, as I have said in my reply, the Government did offer the trades unions an advisory committee. I should say that no representative of America was appointed. I am hoping that that advisory committee will be set up, and that will be a step towards recognition.

Mr. Adams: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the basis of my Question is a complaint by the trades unions in Jamaica that they are not permitted to negotiate, although they applied to do so?

Mr. Hall: I have seen a representative of the trades unions since they wrote the letter to my hon. Friend.

RHODESIAS AND NYASALAND (NATIVES).

The following Question stood upon the Order Paper in the name of Mr. EDMUND HARVEY:

30. To ask the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies whether Lord Hailey's Report on native administration has been received; and whether a date can be indicated when it will be published?

Mr. Harvey: I should explain that my Question refers to Southern Rhodesia.

Mr. George Hall: I assume that my hon. Friend is referring to the native administrations of the Rhodesias and Nyasaland. Lord Hailey's report has been received and it is being printed with a view to copies being sent to the Governments of Southern Rhodesia, Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland. The question of publication of the report will be considered with the three Governments concerned as soon as they have received copies.

Mr. Harvey: Will a copy of the report be placed in the Library of the House?

Mr. Halt: I will consider that.

Mr. Creech Jones: In view of the great importance of this report, ought not copies to be made available to the general public; and will the hon. Gentleman say whether the Secretary of State has as yet considered any action on the report, in view of the speech which was recently made By Prime Minister Huggins?

Mr. Hall: The question whether the report shall be made available will be considered. I cannot reply to the other part of the hon. Member's Question.

Mr. Wedgwood: asked the Undersecretary of State for the Colonies whether, before taking any steps to unite the Rhodesias and Nyasaland, safeguards will be obtained for granting the franchise to native and coloured peoples on a common roll of electors on an educational basis, as being the only sufficient safeguard for justice?

Mr. Hall: My right hon. Friend may rest assured that, in any consideration of the possibility of amalgamating the territories to which he refers, the interests of the natives concerned will be fully kept in mind.

Mr. Wedgwood: Does the hon. Gentleman realise that the only real safeguard for our trusteeship for these communities is that they should have the power of self-government and not be subject entirely to class rule?

NORTHERN NIGERIA (EDUCATION).

Mr. Sorensen: asked the Undersecretary of State for the Colonies how many schools for girls above and below the age of 10, respectively, exist in Northern Nigeria and the number of girls in attendance; what steps are being taken to develop education in that area; whether there is any resistance to development; and what steps are being taken to secure an expanding supply of trained teachers?

Mr. George Hall: As the answer is rather long and contains figures, I will, with my hon. Friend's permission, circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Mr. Sorensen: Is it not correct that educational development in this area is, in fact, inadequate, and could the hon.

Gentleman at least indicate whether any special steps' are taken to encourage educational development?

Mr. Hall: The hon. Member will see from the reply what steps are being taken.

Following is the answer:

Girls' schools in Northern Nigeria are not subdivided according to ages in the manner suggested in the first part of my hon. Friend's Question In nearly all Native Administration and Mission Schools, the classes are co-educational. On 31st March, 1940, there were in the Native Administration elementary schools 1,415 girls, as against 1,118 in 1938, and 795 in 1937. In the five Native Administration schools providing specifically for girls there were 179 girls, making a total of 1,594 in Native Administration schools as against 1,309 in 1938. At the same date there were 3,944 girls in Mission schools (3,433 in 1938) which, in the main, provide for southerners living in the Northern Provinces or for non-Moslem areas. The particular need for trained African teachers is recognised, and, as a start to meet this need, a Training Centre was opened at Sokoto in October, 1939, with 21 pupils. The students are mostly young girls who need much help and supervision. Increasing interest has been shown in female education in the Northern Provinces during recent years, and the prejudices against girls' education are now breaking down. There is no special desire for segregation, and in several places where separate girls' classes were formed with a great deal of caution some years ago, the girls now mix and are taught with the boys.

DEAD SEA AREA (OIL PRODUCTION).

Commander Bower: asked the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies whether arrangements are now being made to develop the Dead Sea oilfield, in view of the threat to other sources of supply?

Mr. George Hall: No, Sir. It has not yet been proved that an economic oilfield exists in the Dead Sea area, and the plant and skilled personnel which would be required for the purpose can be better employed elsewhere on fully developed oilfields.

Commander Bower: Does not the geographical position of this oilfield offer many advantages? Have not experiments already carried out shown that there is an oilfield in this area, and can the hon. Gentleman give some assurance that the development of this oilfield will not be prevented by interlocking international vested interests?

Mr. Hall: At the moment it is a question of personnel and machinery.

GERMAN LEGATION, EIRE.

Dr. Russell Thomas: asked the Under-Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs whether he can give information in regard to the numbers employed at the German Legation in Eire?

Mr. George Hall: I have been asked to reply. I understand that the official staff of the German Legation in Eire is composed of six persons, together with three typists.

Dr. Thomas: Can my hon. Friend say what is the nationality of these employees?

Mr. Hall: No, Sir. I could not say without notice.

Mr. G. Strauss: Could the Minister say what the unofficial staff consists of?

Mr. Hall: No, Sir. I have no knowledge of the unofficial staff. I am dealing with the official staff.

Mr. Logan: Can the hon. Gentleman tell me what use they are there?

Mr. Noel Baker: Can the hon. Gentle-may say whether the German Government also maintain consulates in different parts of Ireland, including the ports?

Dr. Thomas: Can my hon. Friend give any information as to whether the employees have passports allowing them to cross over the Ulster border?

COAL MINING (APPRENTICESHIP).

Mr. David Adams: asked the Secretary for Mines whether progress has been made towards the establishment of apprenticeship in the coal mining industry?

The Secretary for Mines (Mr. David Grenfell): The subject has been under discussion with my right hon. Friend, the Minister of Labour and National Service, and I am asking the two sides of the industry to assist us in framing a long-term policy to deal with this very important problem.

Mr. Adams: Does the Minister expect to have a report at an early date?

Mr. Grenfell: Yes, Sir.

MATCHES (SUPPLY).

Mr. Lipson: asked the President of the Board of Trade whether he is aware that matches are practically unobtainable by the general public; and whether he will take steps to increase the supply available?

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade (Captain Waterhouse): The supply of matches is now about half pre-war consumption and production could be materially increased only at the expense of direct war needs. As my right hon. Friend stated yesterday in reply to a Question by my hon. Friend the Member for Tamworth (Sir J. Mellor), steps are being taken to produce a mechanical lighter of a simple and economical type.

Mr. Lipson: In view of the fact that matches are practically unobtainable under the present system by householders, will the Minister consider a system of registration; and will he say what would be a reasonable weekly ration for each house?

Captain Waterhouse: I am afraid the rationing of matches would not be the best way to meet the present shortage. If my hon. Friend will send me particulars of any town in which there is a particular shortage, we will look into the matter and see what can be done.

Mr. Lipson: Is not my hon. and gallant Friend aware that it would be more difficult to name a town where matches were available at the present time?

Mr. Thorne: In consequence of the big demand for mechanical lighters, how is it proposed to prevent prices from jumping up?

VEGETABLE SEEDS (PRICES).

Sir Percy Hurd: asked the Minister of Agriculture whether he is aware that exorbitant prices are being demanded for vegetable seeds for next season's crop; and what steps are being taken to ensure adequate supplies at reasonable prices for allotment holders and others?

The Minister of Agriculture (Mr. R. S. Hudson): Now that many of our normal sources of supply of vegetable seeds are cut off, some increase in price is inevitable, but I am keeping the matter under close review and, up to the present, I have no evidence that the trade generally are charging unreasonably high prices. A system of strict supervision of prices, including those of packet seed, is being instituted for the forthcoming season.

Sir P. Hurd: Is the Minister satisfied that allotment holders will get an ample supply of seeds at reasonable prices?

Mr. Hudson: Yes, Sir, if they take advantage of facilities that exist. They should apply to their allotment society, or through the National Allotmentholders' Society.

Mr. Sorensen: Seeing that a shortage of supply in other directions has not meant increases in price, why should a shortage of seeds be followed by an increase in price?

Viscountess Astor: Human nature.

Mr. Hudson: We used to draw seeds from near sources like Holland and France, but now we have to get them from distant sources like Australia and New Zealand.

Mr. Lawson: Could not any allotment holder tell the Minister that that reason is absurd?

Mr. Neil Maclean: Why are these facilities confined to allotment holders who are members of allotment associations? What about the large number who are not members?

Mr. Hudson: They ought to join.

Mr. Maclean: They may have gardens and not be recognised as allotment holders.

Oral Answers to Questions — CIVIL DEFENCE.

BILLETING ALLOWANCES.

Sir L. Lyle: asked the Minister of Health whether he has recently made any inquiry to ascertain how the increase in the cost of living has operated in respect of the billeting allowances for both children and mothers; and, if not, whether he will do so to avoid families having to contribute to the upkeep of such evacuees out of their own resources?

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health (Miss Horsbrugh): Mothers and accompanied children are billeted for lodging only. I assume, therefore, that my hon. Friend has in mind billeting allowances for unaccompanied children. The question of the adequacy of billeting allowances is kept under constant review and certain aspects are receiving attention at the present moment.

Dr. Edith Summerskill: Is it not a fact that the Minister of Health has received representations from many local authorities and individuals, asking that these allowances should be increased?

Miss Horsbrugh: No, Sir, from very few.

FIRE SERVICE (FOOD STOCKS).

Mr. Culverwell: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he is satisfied that adequate arrangements have been made to protect our stocks of food from fire; and whether he has taken steps to provide suitable living accommodation, if necessary by requisitioning premises, for those engaged in fire-protection duties?

The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Home Security (Miss Wilkinson): Where the Business Premises Order has been applied, responsibility for settling the fire prevention arrangements to be made by the occupier, including the provision of sleeping accommodation, rests with the appropriate authority; and it is the duty of the occupier to give effect to those arrangements. The second part of the Question does not therefore arise.

Mr. Curverwell: Is the son. Lady aware that two and a half months ago a firm storing 8,000 tons of food on behalf of the Ministry of Food approached me to seek powers to requisition premises for the


housing of the fire-protection staff? This firm have, incidentally, spent large sums of money on fire arrangements. I wrote to the Ministry to take action, and nothing has been done for two and a half months.

Miss Wilkinson: It is hardly right to say that nothing has been done. There has been a considerable amount of inquiry into the matter and consultation with the Ministry of Food, which is not the proper authority. The local authority is the proper authority. The question arises as to whether these premises are necessary for these fire-prevention arrangements.

Mr. Culverwell: Is the hon. Lady aware that inquiry will not save premises from fire?

Miss Wilkinson: That is true, but the point is whether the requisitioning of these particular premises is really necessary.

Mr. Logan: When there is no authority on the spot to give the right of salvage when shops are burning, will the hon. Lady take steps to see that the A.R.P. shall have authority, if the police are not present, to protect the building?

Miss Wilkinson: That is another question.

Mr. Logan: I am asking the hon. Lady —and this is dealing with steps to safeguard stocks of food—whether she will take steps to see that if the right authority is not present to salvage stock, she will give authority to other services that are present?

Miss Wilkinson: The whole question of salvage is very much under our consideration, and a great deal has been done to sec that the very thing the hon. Member asks for is carried out.

Mr. Logan: I am asking the hon. Lady if she will take steps to see that authority is given to enable salvage to be undertaken.

Oral Answers to Questions — POST-WAR RECONSTRUCTION.

LOCAL GOVERNMENT.

Mr. Ellis Smith: asked the Minister without Portfolio whether he has considered the advisability of setting up a Royal Commission that would consider local government, rating, etc., in order that local government may be put on

modern lines as soon as possible after the termination of hostilities?

The Minister without Portfolio (Mr. Arthur Greenwood): In the view of the Government it would not be advisable, at any rate in present circumstances, to set up a Royal Commission to consider the subjects to which my hon. Friend refers. These subjects are, however, under active consideration, and in this connection I am already in touch with associations representing local authorities in England and Wales. The question of Greater London, of course, raises special problems and will require separate examination. The position in Scotland is being considered by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State.

Mr. Rhys Davies: Will my right hon. Friend take care during his investigations not to do anything to destroy the democratic nature of local government?

Mr. Greenwood: Most certainly, Sir, and the fact that we have taken the earliest possible opportunity of discussing this matter with local authorities is evidence of it.

Mr. Sorensen: Are we likely to have a provisional report on the possible developments in the future?

Mr. Greenwood: I should not like to say so, at the moment. There can be no alteration of the structure of local government authorities without their consent and we have to get an agreement acceptable to the Government before any statement can be made.

Viscountess Astor: Does the Minister mean the consent of the local governments or of the local governed?

WALES.

Colonel Arthur Evans: asked the Minister without Portfolio whether it is his intention to set up a Welsh council for economic and social reconstruction questions; and if so, when?

Mr. Greenwood: I am always prepared to seek and accept the advice of persons whose expert knowledge would be of assistance on particular aspects of reconstruction, and I am already in touch with persons who have a special knowledge of Wales. If at a later stage it proves desir-


able to make more formal arrangements for securing the advice and assistance of persons having expert knowledge of Welsh problems I shall certainly be ready to make them.

Colonel Evans: In view of the fact that the Minister has considered it necessary to set up such a Council in Scotland, will he bear, in mind that the Principality of Wales has problems and aspirations as well as Scotland?

Mr. Greenwood: I should not like to be drawn into a discussion of Welsh Nationalism, but I must point out that the position in Scotland is rather different. The Secretary of State for Scotland has enormous authority. He has, combined in himself, the powers of the Minister of Health, the Minister of Agriculture and some of the powers of the Home Secretary. I am willing to receive representations from people experienced in matters of Welsh Government.

Colonel Evans: I beg to give notice that I will raise this matter on the Adjournment.

Oral Answers to Questions — FOOD SUPPLIES.

SUBSTITUTES.

Mr. David Adams: asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food whether he is aware of large sales to the public of articles described as egg substitute; that these substances, often being sold in small packages, obtain high prices from the public; and whether he will take steps to ensure either that they contain a specified percentage of egg, or that they shall carry labels making it clear to the consumer that they do not contain egg?

Mr. Mathers: asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food whether, in taking decisions regarding the prices charged for food substitutes, he will take into account the genuine attempt to evolve a product containing all the active properties of the original except its full food value; is he aware that certain local authorities are trying to set a standard for egg substitute based on coloured baking powder, and prosecuting firms making a more efficient egg substitute; and has he any statement to make?

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food (Major Lloyd George): An Order has recently been made which

provides that no person shall, by way of trade or business, engage in the manufacture of any food substitute except under, and in accordance with the terms of a licence; and that no person shall sell any food substitute except in the same container in which, and under the same label and description under which, it was sold by the manufacturer. Steps will be taken to ensure that manufacturers of satisfactory substitutes only will be licensed, and I have every hope that this Order will put an end to abuses of the type mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Consett (Mr. David Adams) of which I am well aware. Consideration will be given to the point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Mathers) when licences to manufacture are granted. I am not aware of the practice of certain local authorities to which he refers, but I will be happy to consider any further particulars he is able to send me.

Mr. Adams: Can the Minister say what penalties are associated with this type of fraud?

Major Lloyd George: No, Sir, I cannot.

Mr. Mathers: Would the Minister be willing to see those who are interested in this matter?

Major Lloyd George: indicated assent.

Mr. Douglas: asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the. Minister of Food whether he is now able to make any statement regarding the proposal that vendors of food substitutes should be required to disclose on each package the precise composition of the article sold?

Major Lloyd George: It is considered that the provisions of the Food Substitutes (Control) Order will provide adequate and effective means whereby the exploitation of the public can be prevented. This will not necessarily be accomplished by the disclosure of the composition of food substitutes upon the package but by preventing unjustifiable and extravagant claims being made for the products.

Mr. Douglas: Is it not as necessary that people should know the composition of food substitutes as of drugs and medicines?

Major Lloyd George: Certainly, though I would remind my hon. Friend that when the requirement to specify on the


outside of a patent medicine what was inside was introduced, to everybody's consternation it rather increased the sales.

WORKERS' RATIONS.

Mr. Banfield: asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food whether, in any scheme to increase rations for heavy-manual workers, he will consider the case of operative bakers employed on continuous nightwork in an atmosphere of 90 degrees or more on shifts extending at week-ends to 12 to 16 hours and for whom neither canteens nor restaurants are available?

Mr. Sorensen: asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food whether, in view of the particular strain and responsibility experienced by drivers and male and female conductors of public-transport vehicles, he has made any special inquiries in consultation with their trade unions respecting the effect of the present rations on their health and stamina; and whether he will consider diving special attention to the nutritive needs of this class of worker with a view to some concession being made?

Major Lloyd George: In such matters, my Department have the benefit of the advice of the special advisory committee set up by the Trades Union Congress. As I mentioned in the Debate on the 2nd of this month, every possible encouragement has been given to the setting up of works' canteens and British Restaurants and measures for improving the supply of foods to establishments catering for workers are under consideration. I appreciate that there are categories of workers in whose cases the provision of canteen facilities involves some difficulty and I shall be happy to have inquiries made in any such cases if my hon. Friends will furnish me with the particulars.

Mr. Banfield: Is not the Minister aware that, in the case of many bakeries, canteens are not a possibility? He must recognise that. If that is so, will he not give special consideration to this matter?

Major Lloyd George: Yes, Sir, I shall be very happy to do so. We have in view other arrangements whereby people who are in a position where canteen facilities cannot be made available, will be catered for in a different way.

SMALL TRADERS.

Major Lyons: asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food to what extent his inquiries show that any additional trading in articles of foodstuff has been, or is being, carried on by departmental and other stores not formerly engaged in such type of trading, to the detriment of the small established trader; and what steps are proposed for the latter's protection?

Major Lloyd George: I have no information regarding the extent to which departmental stores or other stores have undertaken the retail sale of additional types of food; but I would refer my hon. gallant and learned Friend to the answer which I have given to my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Holland with Boston (Lieutenant Butcher) which shows that licences from the local food control committees are required before a retailer can sell the principal foods. In considering the granting of such licences the committees give special attention to the convenience of the public. They have not been instructed to take any action specially designed to protect a particular class of trader.

Major Lyons: In view of the very great burdens which the small shopkeepers have to bear all over the country, will the Department take steps, when representations are made by them, to give consideration to this point of view?

Major Lloyd George: My hon. and gallant Friend will appreciate that the granting of retail licences to trade in any commodities—or at least in most commodities—can only be carried out by the local food committees. I can assure him that they are not given unless it is in the public interest.

Major Lyons: Will the right hon. and gallant Gentleman bear in mind that in fact many departmental stores have been trading in foodstuffs only since rationing was introduced, and that it is to that fact that the sufferings of the small traders are largely due?

Major Lloyd George: I should be very glad to know of particular cases, but I can assure my hon. and gallant Friend that the interests of the trader are pretty well looked after by their own organisations.

Major Lyons: We all represent small shopkeepers, and not of any one particular section.

Mr. Evelyn Walkden: Is the right hon. and gallant Gentleman aware that most of these departmental stores applied for their general licences in 1939, and is not that the simple reason why they are able to trade in such varied articles as are referred to in the Question?

Major Lloyd George: I understand that under the 1939 Order a licence to sell by retail certain specified articles has to be obtained, and that licence can only be given by the local food control committee.

FISH (PRICES).

Mr. Henderson Stewart: asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food what bodies or persons representing the interests of in-shore line fishermen were consulted before it was decided to reduce the maximum price paid to fishermen for round fish; whether the increased cost of fishing gear was taken into consideration in determining the new prices; and why the whole burden of the reduced price to consumers was thrown upon the men who risk lives and capital in catching fish and none of the burden upon fish merchants?

Major Lloyd George: As regards the first part of the Question, the reduced maximum prices for fish which were brought into operation on 29th September were decided upon in the light of experience of the working of the original Maximum Prices Order, and of the full and prolonged consultations with all sections of the industry which preceded that Order. It was neither practicable nor necessary to repeat those consultations before revising the Order, but my hon. Friend may rest assured that all relevant factors, including the increased cost of gear, were taken into consideration in fixing the new prices. As regards the last part of the Question, the original Order effected a drastic reduction in the ruling margins of profit obtained by the distributive sections of the trade. The results of the first few months of fish price control showed conclusively that any further reduction in the price to the consumer could only be made by reducing the maximum price to the producer.

Mr. Stewart: Is my right hon. and gallant Friend aware that at least the

in-shore line fishermen of the East of Scotland contend that they had no representation at any conference held by the right hon. and gallant Gentleman's Department, neither were they consulted?

Major Lloyd George: I could not say without notice what happened in that particular case, but I can assure my hon. Friend that their interests have been consulted. The prices obtaining under this Order are considerably in excess of what they enjoyed before the war.

Mr. Stewart: No.

Mr. Parker: asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food what progress has been made in drawing up the fish scheme, which he originally announced would come into operation early in September; and when he proposes to introduce it?

Major Lloyd George: A scheme has now been prepared, but so long as the existing system of price control continues to function satisfactorily it is not proposed to introduce a more drastic scheme of control for the industry.

PRESS ADVERTISING (COST).

Mr. Douglas: asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food what is the total cost, to the latest convenient date, of the Press advertising published at the instance of the Ministry of Food?

Major Lloyd George: The Ministry's expenditure on advertising in the Press from October, 1939, to 31st August, 1941, was approximately £570,000.

HORSEFLESH (PRICE).

Mr. Keeling: asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food whether he is aware that although the maximum price of horseflesh for dogs and cats was fixed at 8d. per pound it is being sold at 1s. 3d. per pound, free of coupon, with a certificate that it is fit for human consumption; whether it is his intention to forbid anyone to give dogs or cats meat fit for for human consumption; and whether he will fix the maximum price of all horseflesh at 8d. per pound?

Major Lloyd George: I am aware that evasions of the Meat Feeding Stuffs (Control and Maximum Prices) Order, 1941, are taking place in the manner described and steps are being taken to prevent it. As regards the second part of


the Question, the matter is regulated by the Waste of Food Order, 1940. Under that Order it would be open to a court to rule that the feeding to animals of food fit for human consumption is a breach of the Order, but the circumstances in each case would have to be considered. As regards the last part of the Question, the fixing of maximum prices for horseflesh for feeding to animals is already prescribed under the Order referred to.

Mr. Keeling: But what about fixing a maximum price for all horseflesh—is there any intention to do that?

Major Lloyd George: The question of fixing a maximum price for horseflesh intended for human consumption is under active consideration at the present moment.

POULTRY AND RABBITS (IMPORTS FROM IRELAND).

Sir L. Lyle: asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food whether he can make any statement on his plans for making arrangements, through prewar wholesalers, for the importation of poultry and rabbits from both Eire and Northern Ireland, with a view to more regulated distribution in this country?

Major Lloyd George: The plans in question are still under examination, and I am not in a position to make a statement at present. As soon as an announcement can be made the trade interests concerned will be informed of the new arrangements.

EGG SCHEME.

Mr. Parker: asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food whether he is aware that there is dissatisfaction about the operation of the egg scheme; and whether it will now be revised to include all producers with more than 20 hens, so as to secure a bigger winter ration?

Major Lloyd George: I am aware that there was dissatisfaction about the egg scheme, but the scheme is now working much better. The question of including producers with 50 birds and less was carefully considered before the scheme was brought into operation, and my Noble Friend is not at present prepared compulsorily to extend the scheme to cover such producers. There is, however, a

financial inducement for such producers to sell their eggs to the Ministry and u large number of them are doing so.

Mr. Parker: Is the right hon. and gallant Gentleman aware that a very large proportion of the eggs consumed in the country are produced by people having between 20 and 50 birds, which makes a very large gap in the whole scheme and leads to considerable discontent?

Major Lloyd George: Naturally if any classes are exempt we do not get all the eggs, but we have given a special inducement to those now exempted to come into the scheme. It is a very good financial inducement, and many of them have taken advantage of it.

GRASS (EDIBLE PROTEINS).

Dr. Edith Summerskill: asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food whether he proposes to use grass as a source of protein?

Major Lloyd George: Research work on the production of edible protein from young grass is proceeding. There are, however, considerable technical difficulties to be overcome before any large-scale production can be contemplated.

Dr. Summerskill: Has the right hon. and gallant Gentleman considered the making of sausages from protein which has been extracted from grass, because certain nutrition experts believe that they would be more nutritious and appetising than those we already have?

Major Lloyd George: I cannot say that I personally have considered that. Research is going on at the present time with a view to obtaining protein from grass. So far as laboratory tests are concerned, I believe a sort of greyish material looking like cheese has been discovered, but that is purely on an experimental scale, which is a very different thing from doing it commercially. Research is still going on.

Mr. G. Griffiths: In the case of any such extract being discovered, would my right hon. and gallant Friend agree that it should be first tried out experimentally on the medical profession themselves?

Sir A. Southby: Will my right hon. and gallant Friend bear in mind the experience of King Nebuchadnezzar?

Oral Answers to Questions — MINISTRY OF SUPPLY.

SCRAP METAL.

Lieut.-Colonel Sir Thomas Moore: asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Supply, whether, in connection with the removal for scrap purposes of railings deemed unnecessary by local authorities, the owner or tenant has any guarantee against accidents to the public or damage to property resulting therefrom?

The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Supply (Mr. Harold Macmillan): Local authorities have been directed not to treat as unnecessary any iron railings which are required for the safety of the public or to prevent livestock from straying or which may otherwise serve a useful function and, if removed, would have to be replaced in some other form. Questions of accident or damage should not therefore arise.

Sir T. Moore: While hoping that my hon. Friend is right, I am afraid I cannot agree with his statement, and would he consider bringing any such loss or damage under the War Damage Act in view of the fact that it would actually occur as a result of the war?

Mr. Macmillan: I will certainly look into it.

Captain Alan Graham: Can the hon. Gentleman give an assurance that any 18th century wrought iron railings of artistic value acquired by his Department will be preserved, even if the local authorities are ignorant of their artistic value, as is so often the case?

Mr. Doland: asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Supply, whether he is aware that many tons of redundant steel tramway rails could be salvaged by local authorities; whether the Ministry requires this steel for war purposes; and, if so, will he issue instructions to the local authorities to recover them?

Mr. Macmillan: Yes, Sir. Steps have already been taken, in co-operation with local authorities, for the removal of much of this material and more than one-third of the total estimated tonnage of these tramlines has so far been recovered. Care must be taken not to interfere unduly with important traffic routes.

Mr. Doland: May I ask the hon. Gentleman whether his attention is being given to the question of taking up the remaining rails?

Mr. Macmillan: Yes, but we have to be careful not to disturb unduly, or block traffic routes Which may be of the greatest importance both at present, and possibly in the immediate future.

Mr. Higgs: Is the Parliamentary Secretary aware of the high cost of removing such rails, and does he consider the present shortage of steel warrants their removal?

MOTOR VEHICLES (DISPOSAL).

Major Lyons: asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Supply approximately how many heavy motor vehicles, both load and passenger carrying, have been found redundant or unnecessary; what steps have been taken to give the original owners the opportunity of repurchase; and what machinery has been utilised to correlate the figures at which such vehicles were originally impressed or acquired in order to arrive at sales prices which are fail according to all relevant considerations at the time of becoming surplus to requirements?

Mr. Harold Macmillan: No heavy vehicles, either load or passenger carrying, have been found to be redundant. The War Office have, however, released a number of impressed vehicles to alleviate the position of civil transport. These have been dealt with as explained in my answer to the hon. and gallant Member on 8th October. No arrangements have been made to offer vehicles to original owners, except in the case of public service passenger carrying vehicles where, should any become available, negotiations will take place to give the original owners an opportunity to re-purchase. Very few of this type will be released.

Major Lyons: asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Supply whether he will state the details of the controlled conditions under which 800 motor vehicles have been disposed of by agreement in August last between his Department and the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders, Limited; and how the number was apportioned to members of this company?

Mr. Macmillan: It would be impracticable to give in an oral answer the information asked for. I have, therefore, sent to my hon. and gallant Friend a copy of the form of contract between the Minister of Supply and the vehicle manufacturer as agreed with the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders. Under the scheme, the vehicles are allocated to their respective original manufacturers. Up to 3rd October, the number of vehicles so allocated had increased from 800 to 1,325, and I am sending my hon. and gallant Friend a list showing the number of vehicles allocated to each manufacturer.

Major Lyons: If there is submitted to the Minister particulars from Members of this House in which it appears that this contract has been flouted, will he personally look into the allegations made and see if they are warranted in fact?

Mr. Macmillan: Of course, I shall be ready to look into any allegations.

Captain Strickland: Is my hon. Friend not satisfied that this Departmental action will do much to prevent the scandal of the speculation in Army vehicles such as occurred after the last war?

Mr. Macmillan: Yes, that is why we adopted it.

PAPER (ALLOTMENTS).

Captain McEwen: asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Supply whether allotments of paper are only made to such publications as have been authorised and approved by his Department?

Mr. Harold Macmillan: No, Sir; allotments are made in relation to pre-war consumption. The publication of new periodicals and newspapers is prohibited, except by special licence.

Mr. Rhys Davies: What has happened to the paper saved by the suppression of the "Daily Worker''?

Mr. Orr-Ewing: Will the hon. Gentleman consider reinstating a committee on the same lines as that which existed in the last war, which was very successful in allocating paper supplies?

Miss Eleanor Rathbone: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the present system results in a great deal of waste of paper

in publications not only wasteful but possibly mischievous, such as advertisements of articles of luxury clothing and so forth?

Mr. Macmillan: The present system is based upon the allocation of a proportion of the paper used before the war. If we were to make it a qualitative basis, it would involve difficult questions, and I think we should soon be accused of censorship.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.

Mr. Lees-Smith: (by Private Notice) asked the Minister without Portfolio whether he has any statement to make about the Business for this day?

Mr. Greenwood: We are taking the first two Orders on the Paper. We do not propose to take the Fish Sales (Charges) Order to-day. After the first two Orders the Adjournment of the House will be moved.

Mr. Henderson Stewart: Can the right hon. Gentleman indicate when it is proposed to take this Order, as some importance attaches to it.

Mr. Greenwood: It is difficult for me to say, but clearly it will be taken at the earliest opportunity.

Mr. Stewart: Will the right hon. Gentleman bear in mind that this Order imposes on poor fishermen a very heavy new charge, which they bitterly reseat?

Orders of the Day — MARRIAGE (MEMBERS OF HIS MAJESTY'S FORCES) BILL [Lords].

Order for Second Reading read.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Admiralty (Sir Victor Warrender): I beg to move, "That the Bill be now read a Second time."
During the last war, in 1915, Parliament placed upon the Statute Book an Act, which was limited to the period of the war, which made provision to remove some difficulties which faced naval officers and ratings who desired to get married but who, owing to the exigencies of service, could not obtain sufficient leave to travel to the place appointed for the ceremony. This Bill is intended to achieve a similar object, but it has been drafted so as to include within its scope the Army and the Royal Air Force as well as the Royal Navy. In the Great War there were virtually no operational troops stationed in this country. Such units as were at home were for the most part trainees. Leave was more readily obtainable for them than is the case to-day. They were not liable to be moved about from one place to another at very short notice. Consequently, it was unnecessary to extend to the other two Services the facilities granted to the Navy in the Act of 1915. To-day, conditions are very different. There are large numbers of operational men, both in the Army and in the Royal Air Force, stationed at home; and they are faced with the same problems as have faced the Navy both in the last war and in this war.
The House will appreciate that members of the Forces, so far as marriage laws are concerned, are on the same footing as civilians. Once their marriage has been arranged for a particular place, there are generally considerable formalities to be gone through, or additional expense to be incurred, if arrangements have to be made for the wedding to take place somewhere else. If the bridegroom is unable to obtain leave, the couple are faced with a serious difficulty. They may be willing to defer their wedding a few days in the hope of leave being granted, but there is always the risk of this hope not materialising, and even if leave is obtainable shortly, it is undesirable that the

young couple should be compelled to delay their wedding, if delay can be avoided. In cases where a man is ordered overseas the objection to delay becomes very much greater. The next case is that of marriage by bann. When banns have been called in the parishes where the two parties live they can be married in either of those parishes within three months. The bride's parish church is often chosen, because the bridegroom, being a member of the Forces, is most likely to be stationed away from home. Indeed, if he is a sailor in a sea-going ship, he has no alternative, for the banns will have to be called in that ship. In some cases it may be possible for the wedding to take place in the parish church where the bridegroom happens to be stationed, and where his banns are called, but this becomes impracticable if he is suddenly moved to another station. The only possible alternative then is to arrange a marriage by licence, a course which is not only expensive but troublesome to those not familiar with the procedure.
So much for marriages by bann in England. There are similar difficulties in respect of weddings arranged in other ways: for instance, those which take place at a registry office. This Bill is designed to reduce the difficulties as far as possible, so that where a person in the Forces has arranged to get married and, owing to the exigencies of service, cannot get to the place arranged, every possible facility will be given him or her to be married elsewhere. I say "her," because it will be noticed that, for the purposes of the Bill, the term "His Majesty's Forces" includes women employed in the categories specified in the First Schedule to the Bill. To these categories additions can be made by Order in Council. In many cases both parties to the marriage will be members of His Majesty's Forces. In such cases, when these difficulties arise they become doubly serious.
The machinery of the Bill is contained in the first three Clauses. Sub-section (1) of Clause 1 provides that once the necessary formalities to enable the ceremony to be performed in a particular building in England—that is, either in a church or in a registry office—have been complied with, provided a person in the Services produces a certificate signed by his or her commanding officer, stating that he or


she cannot go to that building, the ceremony can be performed elsewhere in England or in Scotland. Sub-section (2) of Clause 1 similarly provides for the marriage to take place in England in cases where it was originally intended that it should take place in Scotland. Now that I am dealing with the commanding officer's certificate, I would draw the attention of hon. Members to an Amendment which was moved in another place and inserted in the Bill, by which the commanding officer, or the authority issuing the certificate, has to satisfy himself before doing so that he has no reason to believe that the party to whom he is issuing the certificate is already married.
Clause 2 extends the validity of banns, of a diocesan marriage licence, or of a registrar's certificate in England or Scotland from three months to 12 months where a member of the Forces is concerned. Clause 3 empowers the Registrar-General for England and Wales to authorise a superintendent registrar to issue a marriage licence immediately where at least one of the parties is a member of the Forces. At present a superintendent registrar can issue a marriage licence only after the lapse of one clear day. Similar provisions have already been made in the Marriage (Scotland) Act, by which a sheriff can grant a licence for immediate marriage in unforeseen and exceptional cases. Hon. Members will realise that in the event of a man being ordered overseas at very short notice, that might be the only means by which he could marry before he sailed. Clause 4 is drafted so as to qualify a woman employed with the Navy, the Army or the Air Force in any of the capacities stated in the First Schedule to marry in a naval, military or Air Force Chapel. Clause 5 explains itself.
Perhaps I ought to make it quite clear that Clauses 1, 2 and 3 are to have effect for the period of the war only, but that Clause 4 is to be permanent legislation. This Bill was shown in draft to the various Church authorities in the country, and I am glad to say that it now meets with their approval, and has their blessing. I ought to say that the Bill is badly needed and that the Chaplain of the Fleet and the Chaplains-General of the two other Services are anxious to see it quickly passed into law. I only wish that it had been possible to do so earlier. Having

given that brief explanation to the House, I hope hon. Members will find that the Bill commends itself to them and will see fit to speed its passage into law.'

Major Milner: This is an obviously helpful and desirable Bill, designed to facilitate the marriage of members of His Majesty's Forces in cases in which there would otherwise be difficulty in bringing the parties together owing to the exigencies of service. It is rather interesting to note that the Government are, apparently, taking an interest in the question of facilitating marriage between members of His Majesty's Forces. I do not know how far the right hon. Gentleman the Lord President of the Council is responsible for this Bill. We all hope that he will not have to take advantage of it, and I think we might take this opportunity to tender him our good wishes, wherever he gets married.
I am sure that all parties will support the Bill, and there are only one or two questions concerning it which I would like to put to the hon. Gentleman. First, I am not altogether clear as to how the vicar or officiating authority, whoever he may be, of a church in one part of the country is to know that the conditions of the law have been complied with by the parties in another part of the country. Perhaps I have not made myself clear. Assume that banns have been published in Yorkshire but that owing to the exigencies of the Service the parties, or one of them, cannot get to the church in which the banns have been published and the pair desire to be married in a church in Cornwall. The appropriate certifying authority—the commanding officer or some other officer—will give a certificate that, owing to the exigencies of the Service, the particular member of the Forces who is concerned cannot proceed to Yorkshire in order to go through the ceremony in the church in which the banns have been published. But how is the vicar of the church in Cornwall to know that the necessary conditions have been complied with in Yorkshire?
Secondly, my hon. Friend referred to an Amendment moved in another place, the effect of which seems to be to place a duty on the appropriate certifying authority not only to certify that the exigencies of the Service prevent a particular member of the Forces from


being married in the place originally desired, but also to certify that he has no reason to believe that the serving man or woman as the case may be is already married. That, it seems to me, places some responsibility on the appropriate certifying authority. It will be up to him to look up the pay-sheets of the unit concerned and presumably to question a man and obtain assurances from him and to take, it may be, other steps. I am not wholly satisfied with the form of this Amendment. I am not sure that it is strong enough. I hope the Parliamentary Secretary will be able to give some assurance that instructions will be issued to appropriate certifying authorities not to certify too much as a matter of course but to make some inquiries.
Many of us know that during the late war there was a number of unsatisfactory and, in some cases, bigamous marriages, resulting often in great hardship to the women concerned. It was not always possible to satisfy oneself that either party to a proposed marriage had not been married before. My point is that Naval, Air Force, and Army authorities should place some duty on and issue some instructions to the appropriate certifying authority in this connection. I do not know whether it has appeared yet in any other Bill which has come before the House, but it is interesting to note in this Measure that women of certain categories now take their places as members of His Majesty's Forces in legislation. On that point, however, I am not clear whether the categories set out in the Schedule are complete, but apparently it is permissible, at any time, by Order in Council to add additional categories of women's Services. Having raised these points, it only remains for me to express the hope that the Bill will receive a Second Reading.

Mr. Goldie: I am sure that the House generally will welcome this Bill as one which is greatly needed and will be of great advantage to many of those who are at present serving their country. My only criticism is that the Bill does not go far enough. I observe in Clause 1 the words:
Where the parties to an intended marriage have duly fulfilled all the conditions required by law

I desire to bring to the attention of the House the extraordinary difficulty, if conditions on active service at present are anything like what they were in the last war, of fulfilling "all the conditions required by law." I remember in the last war among my duties as an officer was that of doing all I could to assist men who were going home on leave to get married when they returned home, and there is no doubt that the difficulties of getting the banns put up while a man was on active service in France were extraordinarily great. I do respectfully suggest that when this Bill is; being dealt with in Committee this point should be considered and we should know exactly what meaning is to be attached to these words: "fulfilled all the conditions required by law." We ought to make absolutely certain that it is made as easy as possible for men who are on active service in this country to carry out the natural wish to get married and to fulfil all the necessary requirements.

Mr. Bellenger: I do not suppose that there will be any objection to this Bill in any part of the House, but there is one point which may prove to be a point of substance and on which I should like an assurance from the hon. Gentleman. The certificate is to be issued by the appropriate authority, and that appropriate authority in the case of the Army is described in the Bill as "an officer not below the rank of major." That will not necessarily mean the man's own commanding officer. Apparently anyone holding His Majesty's commission, of the rank of major or upwards, can issue a certificate. The point will then arise that an officer who is not the man's own commanding officer may not know sufficient about the man to be able to certify that the man has, or has not been married already. That officer will apparently have to inquire into the circumstances to see whether there is even any opportunity of a bigamous union taking place. At the present time in the case of a marriage in a church the banns are called and it is open to any member of the congregation to say whether any just cause or impediment exists to prevent the marriage taking place. But there is no onus on the marrying authority, the officiating clergyman, to inquire into the antecedents of the man or woman before he performs the ceremony. Therefore I


do not think we can throw such a responsibility on the military authorities especially if the officer who has to give the certificate is not the commanding officer of the party concerned. I do not think we should throw any additional onus on the officer to make inquiries into whether a man or a woman is eligible for a legal marriage. Perhaps a warning could be issued to the man or woman concerned of the penalties attending a bigamous marriage.
The next point I want to raise, which, I think, is one of substance, is that it has been brought to my notice that men are being deprived of certain privileges to which they are entitled merely because they have committed some small crime or what is known as crime in the Army. I take it that no officer or appropriate authority can withhold the certificate whatever the circumstances affecting the man's own conduct, providing he is satisfied that the man is eligible to be married. It would be a terrible state of affairs if, now that we are going to place this authority into the hands of certain officers, they should use it as a penalty against a man merely because he has committed some misdemeanour or does not fall in with unit orders. I hope that when he replies the hon. Gentleman will state definitely that the certifying authorities are bound to give the certificate in all circumstances, except in those which would lead them to believe that the man or woman is not entitled to enter into a legal marriage.

Mr. Logan(Liverpool, Scotland Division): I am entirely averse to the opinion that has been expressed by my hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw (Mr. Bellenger) in regard to the right and authority to give indiscriminately any such certificate. These are marriages arranged simply and solely for the benefit of the Services and to get rid of difficulties, but it does not get rid of the obligation of Church and State to see that the marriage should be carried out by means of a proper ceremony. A marriage may be one that a man may easily enter into, but the family relationship of any girl who may be thrown into the Services is an obligation for life, and such a marriage may be a great hardship upon such a girl. I am convinced that it is necessary in the Second Schedule to the Bill that proper authority should be set up. If I have a daughter who goes into

one of the Services I have the right to see that she is as well protected in this respect as she would be in her own home. That is a right that every woman ought to have given to her. I do not think that it was the idea of those who formulated this Measure that, in order to meet the exigencies of the moment, a person had only to make, an application to some officer not specially designated. I contend that this is a moral obligation. Marriage is a sacrament, and therefore the question of joining young persons together in marriage calls for the exercise of responsibility on the part of parents, with the proper protection of Church and State.
I admit that there are many hardships, but this Bill was not introduced for the purpose of providing merely a convenience for men and women to be married. Marriage as a convenience and as a wartime proposition does not appeal to me at all. The responsible authority should have some knowledge of the character of the individuals and their bona fides in respect of the right to marry. This gets me down at once to the responsible authority. I have nothing to say against men or women who feel called upon to give service to King and country being able to marry as provided by this Bill, but that does not get rid of the responsibility of someone being able to certify as to their reliability. I presume that under the Bill both men and women will have the right to make an application for the special legislation to be applied to them. It has been said that a sailor has a wife in every port. That is a term which has been loosely applied, and I do not think that it is the principle that we wish to have in this special legislation.
Our object should be to see that no real grievance exists, and it may be necessary at a time like this that an emergency Bill of this description should be brought into operation. A responsible officer may sign the certificate as a matter of form if a man or woman wants to marry in quick time, but I want to know what procedure he will take to satisfy himself as to the genuineness of the application if it is desired that a marriage should take place at short notice. I want to know what steps can be taken by parents to say that their son or daughter has the right to make application for the sanction of the appropriate officer. There have been many unhappy marriages even after the


publication of banns—[Interruption.] It makes a lot of difference. If the hon. Member lived in my home, he would know that it makes a lot of difference. In my home we look upon it as the sanctity of marriage, and in this House of Commons we have the right to see that this Bill shall be in conformity with the moral obligation in which this country believes and which ought to be protected. Therefore, we are justified in asking that authority should not be given as a matter of form but that there should be some procedure to enable such information to be obtained as would justify the giving of authority. I have nothing to say about such a Bill being brought forward in the present emergency, but I am anxious to see that the parents of sons and daughters serving in His Majesty's Forces will feel satisfied that every precaution is taken by commanding officers and others and that loose permission will not be given for these marriages.

Sir V. Warrender: With the permission of the House, I will briefly answer some of the points which have been made. It would be quite a mistake for hon. Members to assume that this Bill in any way relaxes the present formalities with regard to marriage. Indeed, it aids rather than detracts from these formalities. The primary object of the Bill is solely to enable a marriage which is arranged to take place at A to take place at B, and so far as the fears of the hon. Gentleman the Member for the Scotland Division of Liverpool (Mr. Logan) are concerned— that these certificates will be issued in a loose fashion—I think he may rest assured that that will not be the case. Often the commanding officer will know, for instance, whether a man in his unit is unmarried or married, by reason of the allotments which are made, and he will have other means of knowing a man's history. Quite obviously, it will never be possible to devise any system which will completely prevent the committing of bigamy, but there is no intention in this Bill to relax any of the formalities or precautions which have already been laid down by the law.
With regard to the question asked by the hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for South-East Leeds (Major Milner), as to how a vicar would know whether a man's banns had been properly called in

another parish, the man—it may be a woman—would be asked whether his or her banns had been called, and confirmation could be easily obtained from the vicar of the parish in which they had been called. The commanding officer would satisfy himself on that point. The hon. Gentleman the Member for Basset-law (Mr. Bellenger) asked whether it was necessary that a man's own commanding officer should sign the certificate. That is really a question of administration. If a man's own commanding officer is not available, the War Office, Admiralty or the Air Ministry would find a competent authority to issue a certificate if the case was an extremely urgent one. Our chief desire is to prevent a man, who is a fit and proper person to marry, and who has suddenly to go overseas, from leaving his bride-to-be unmarried. We want to enable him to get married. In an extreme case I think that under the Bill another officer of suitable rank, provided that he is satisfied that the provisions of the Bill are being properly carried out, could issue a certificate so that a man would be able to have his marriage performed.

Mr. Bellenger: Is it in order for the War Office, by virtue of the issue of an Army Council instruction, to interpret who is to be the officer not below the rank of major? Once the House of Commons passes this Bill and it becomes an Act, is it in order for the War Office then to issue an Army Council instruction defining who that officer shall be in accordance with the Act?

The Attorney-General (Sir Donald Somervell): There is no doubt about that. It states that a certificate shall not be given by an officer below the rank of major, and it is fully within the competence of the War Office, who have to administer the Act, to lay down instructions as to who is the proper authority to give a certificate.

Sir V. Warrender: The hon. Gentleman the Member for Bassetlaw also asked whether power to issue this certificate could be used against the man's own interests if he had been in trouble and in the commanding officer's bad books. I imagine that would not happen. Instructions which would be issued when the Bill passed into law would presumably take that into account if it was thought necessary, as under this Bill very often


when a certificate was applied for it would be possible for a man to get married on his own station without having to get special leave to go somewhere else. In such a case as that a commanding officer would have more inducement to give a certificate so that a man could get married rather than give him 24 hours' leave to go away. Therefore, I do not think that that point made by the hon. Gentleman has much substance.

Mr. Bellenger: The hon. Gentleman has misunderstood the point. Once a man or woman has satisfied the appropriate officer that he or she is eligible for marriage, I say that a certificate should automatically be issued and that no commanding officer or certifying officer should be able to withhold that certificate merely because a man has, say, been absent without leave or committed one of the numerous petty crimes that soldiers do commit.

Sir V. Warrender: Instructions to that effect will be included in the orders following on the Bill.

Question, "That the Bill be now read a Second time," put, and agreed to.

Bill read a Second time.

Bill committed to a Committee of the Whole House for the next Sitting Day.— [Mr. Boulton.]

Orders of the Day — NATIONAL EXPENDITURE.

Order read for resuming Adjourned Debate on Question [9th October]:
That Mr. Ammon, Mr. Higgs, Mr. Leach and Sir Adam Maitland be discharged from the Select Committee on National Expenditure."— [Major Dugdale.]

Question again proposed.

Mr. Austin Hopkinson: I think I should be in Order in reminding the House what took place at the beginning of this Debate last week. My hon. Friend the Member for Faversham (Sir A. Maitland), chairman of the Subcommittee in question, made a full statement of the position of that Sub-committee and of their reasons for desiring the House to grant them their discharge. Subsequently, with a view to maintaining the rights of this House, I intervened in the Debate myself, but time being short, I was unable to conclude my remarks. The position,

if I may remind the House, is this: The House set up a Select Committee to report to the House upon expenditure, particularly in relation to the various 'Fighting Services. That Committee resolved itself into Sub-committees dealing with the various Services, and the Sub-committee we have under discussion to-day was that dealing with the supply of material for the Air Services. In the course of their investigation that Sub-committee investigated a case of what they regarded as quite unjustifiable expenditure of a very large amount of money which might be called not only capital or initial expenditure but continuing expenditure going on to the present day and apparently intended to continue indefinitely, although no result worth talking about can ever come from that expenditure.
Further, in accordance with the procedure of the House the report of this Sub-committee was submitted in the first instance to the main Committee—the Select Committee itself. That main Committee decided by a small majority that this was a case which ought to be submitted, in accordance with their instructions, to the Prime Minister for a decision as to whether it was suitable for publication or not. Therefore, a report was made to the Prime Minister, but I would ask the House to bear in mind that the Report going to the Prime Minister was not the same report which would have been submitted to the Select Committee in the words originally drafted by the Sub-committee in question. Naturally, in a report to the Prime Minister, matters of detail were entered into very fully and to a much greater extent than the Subcommittee would have dreamed of doing in a report to the House, for, after all, a report to the House is public property and therefore, any competent Sub-committee would so draft their report that there was in it no information which could be of value to the enemy. On that account, it seems to me highly probable that the Prime Minister, in dealing with the matter and deciding that the report ought to be suppressed, was basing his decision upon false premises; that is to say, upon the supposition that the report as submitted to him in full detail was approximately the same as the report which would have been submitted to the House. For this reason, it seems to me that the Prime Minister might well reconsider that decision, that


he might examine the original report which was prepared for submission to the House, that he might go through it carefully and possibly ask the Sub-committee to eliminate certain points which he regards as dangerous, and that then the House should receive the report, as I think the House is entitled to do.
It may be said that the House, acting in the state of hysteria in which it was at that particular time, having set up a Select Committee of the House, immediately gave an instruction which sterilised the Committee to a very large extent. The House was in a hysterical state when it was doing these things. One by one the privileges that had been gained through the centuries were thrown away. I think the House might do well to consider in this connection whether it would not be a good thing to revoke the instruction it gave to the Committee. What is the good of this Select Committee on Expenditure if, on representations being made by some Minister, who is really the criminal in the dock, to the Prime Minister, the reports can be suppressed at once, without explanation, on the grounds of public safety? If we allow this Sub-committee to be discharged, in accordance with the Motion before us, I venture to say—and I think I shall have the House with me—that the reports of all the Committees and Subcommittees in future will not be worth a row of pins. Nobody will pay any attention to them because, naturally, both the House and the public will say that if the Committees find out anything really serious, of course it will not be in the public interest that the reports should be published, and they can be suppressed.
As I pointed out to the House last week when the Debate was began, there is another case that is bound to come up sooner or later on a vastly greater scale than the one in question, where public money has simply been poured down the drain and tens of thousands of men have been occupied on a perfectly worthless scheme. Are we to have the appropriate Sub-committee reporting that that expenditure was totally unjustified and that steps should be taken to investigate who was responsible for robbing the taxpayers in this way, and are we to have that report presented to the Prime Minister for him to say that it is not in the public interest that Parliament should know

about it? What on earth is the House of Commons for? Surely, its duty is to take control over these matters and to see that public funds are not wasted and squandered as they are at the present time. That obligation upon the House is greater now than ever it was, since all Treasury safeguards have completely disappeared as regards any large amounts of money. I think I have told the House before that even as far back as the year before the war, Treasury control over large amounts had disappeared, that Ministers could go direct to the Prime Minister for the time being and wangle out of him enormous sums of money, and the Treasury and the Committee of Imperial Defence would be informed of it after the thing had become a fait accompli. In those circumstances, there is no safeguard whatever except the House of Commons. The Treasury are not allowed to exercise their proper function in regard to these very heavy amounts of expenditure; they can deal merely with pettifogging things. Therefore, it behoves the House to stick to its rights and to insist that there shall be some sort of control over public expenditure.
Of course, nowadays people ask, "What does it matter?" In spite of what the Chancellor of the Exchequer has said, we are inflated up to the eyes and will be still more inflated before very long. What does money matter? It matters because it is the measure of man-power, which matters more than anything else. Every pound that is spent unnecessarily means using up man-power, which we cannot afford to waste at the present time. Therefore, I ask the House to consider this matter very seriously. I ask hon. Members to consider whether they will allow this Motion to go through or not. The Members of the Sub-committee concerned, those Members of the House whose names are mentioned in the Motion, wish to be discharged; they wish to be discharged because they are not allowed to carry out their duties. They say it is no use going on if, when they carry out their duties to the House, their report is suppressed, nominally by the main Committee, but actually by the Prime Minister.
But we do not want to have a row about these things at the present time. Therefore, I suggest that the Prime Minister should have before him the re-


port of the Sub-committee as originally drafted, that he should examine it without any relation to the further details which have been handed to him, that if he sees anything in that report which ought to be suppressed in the interests of national safety, he should re-submit the report to the Sub-Committee for fresh drafting to avoid those difficulties, and that then the House, in the exercise of its rights, should be put into possession of the facts, as far as they can be disclosed. If these Sub-committees are to be treated in the future as this one has been, I think the House and public will feel that we might just as well dissolve all of them, for they will be perfectly useless, since every sub-Committee will know that if it finds out anything in any way detrimental to any Minister of the present Government, the report will be suppressed and Parliament's endeavours will be rendered vain.
I hope the House will consider these matters very seriously. I remember that when the House was surrendering its powers one after another in that state of absolute hysteria in which it was after Dunkirk, I protested. I pointed out that one of the most critical periods of our history, the only time when there were armed rebellion and civil war in this country, was mainly the fault of the House of Commons, inasmuch as it allowed the Crown time after time to encroach upon its rights until those rights were encroached upon to such an extent that armed combat was the only way of getting them back again. At this critical time of the nation to-day, I foresee a time when we may be put to that same bitter arbitrament in the middle of the greatest war in history and with the invader at our very doorsteps. Either Parliament must assert its right now by the old constitutional methods, as it is in its power to do, or we shall see ourselves in the position that the Executive will have encroached so far upon our rights that we shall have no means whatever, except the horrible arbitrament to which I have referred, of retaking those rights and getting back to a constitutional and democratic basis of government again.

Sir John Wardlaw-Milne: I hope my hon. Friend the Member for Mossley (Mr. Hopkinson) will forgive me if I do not at once follow him into the very important matters he has raised

concerning the rights of the House of Commons against the Executive. I hope I shall be able to show the House that these matters are somewhat far away from the subject matter which we should be discussing to-day. Before coming to that, however, I would like to deal first with the Debate that took place in the House on 1st October. My hon. Friend the Member for Faversham (Sir A. Maitland) moved an Instruction to the Select Committee on National Expenditure to report to the House the minutes of their proceedings of 6th August. I must refer to that for two reasons. In the first place, a Select Committee publishes the minutes of its proceedings at the end of every Session. Therefore the minutes asked for would have been published in the normal way at the end of the present session. My hon. Friend was, of course, entirely within his rights in asking for them. It was a Motion to which there could be no possible objection, and it was of a purely formal character. If necessary, therefore, I plead guilty, as chairman of the Select Committee, that it never occurred to me to be present when this purely formal Motion was moved. My hon. Friend made no speech at all but merely moved the Motion formally.
To my surprise, next morning I read that the hon. Member for North Aberdeen (Mr. Garro Jones) had made a speech on the subject. He began, correctly, by drawing attention to what he described as the longstanding and salutary rule of the House that it is not competent for a Member to refer to the proceedings before a Select Committee until the Report of the Commitee has been laid on the Table of the House. Having stated that that was a salutary rule, he proceeded at once to break it by making certain comments on these proceedings and still worse by making statements which were inaccurate. These purported to show what had happened in the Select Committee, a matter of which, not being a member of the Committee, he could have no knowledge. He was paying, however, unintentionally a definite tribute to the members of the Committee because it was clear that they gave him no information, and that their pledge of secrecy had been truly kept. He made certain remarks which it is necessary to refer to, because, as the result of that speech, certain completely eroneous statements were made in


the Press. In the first place, he stated that a few weeks previously the question of the Motion which was passed by the House on 28th May, 1940, had come up for interpretation by the relevant Subcommittee of the Select Committee on National Expenditure. I know of no such occasion at all. As far as I know, there is no accuracy in the statement. The hon. Member proceeded to state that upon the Air Sub-committee submitting a report to the full Committee, the Co-ordinating Sub-committee held that a question of public security arose, and therefore the report should be sent direct to the Prime Minister. That is not accurate. Not only did the Co-ordinating Sub-committee not decide but they had no power to do so. Their function was a very much narrower one. All they could do was to make a recommendation to the full Committee, and that is what they did. A little later the hon. Member stated that, seeing that the members of the Air Sub-committee were quite unable to reach an accommodation with the Co-ordinating Sub-committee, they felt that they had no course open to them but to resign. They were not seeking to make any accommodation with the Sub-committee at all. The Subcommittee had, at this stage, nothing to do with the matter. It had passed completely out of their hands. Again the statement therefore is inaccurate.

Mr. Garro Jones: The hon. Gentleman has made a great many rather pompous corrections of my statements. Every statement that I made is correct. If he states that the Co-ordinating Sub-committee had not brought up for interpretation the Order by which the House authorised the Co-ordinating Subcommittee to report direct to the Prime Minister, all I can say is that that is the whole matter in dispute between the Coordinating Sub-committee and the operating Committee. By what authority did the Select Committee give any directions to the Co-ordinating Sub-committee at all, because the House gave the power to report direct to the Prime Minister not to the Select Committee but in express terms to the Co-ordinating Sub-committee? I am not suggesting that that was a correct or an incorrect procedure, but that is actually the power that the House gave it.

Sir J. Wardlaw-Milne: I think the hon. Member will be quite satisfied that I shall

deal clearly with these points. If I do not, I hope he will ask me again. I think I shall convince him that he has been misled. Before dealing with the facts, it is necessary that I should touch on the general question of security in connection with reports made by the Committee to the House. This matter has been actively in the mind of all members of the Select Committee since it was first set up. It arose, perhaps, in an acute form in the first place on matters in connection with a proposed report of the Air Sub-committee when the Solicitor-General was chairman and the hon. Member for Faversham (Sir A. Maitland) and two of his present colleagues were members. The Air Sub-committee at that time had to report on a matter which they thought was so secret that it should not be set out in a published report. May I remind the House of the difficulty in which the House itself is in this connection? If a Select Committee passes a report, from that moment the report passes it goes out of their hands into those of the officers of the House, and it is laid before Parliament and published in the normal way. Therefore the mere passing of a report by the full Committee means prompt publication. That, of course, in time of war raised a difficulty which faced every member of the Committee.
Eighteen months ago, as I say, the question arose in an acute form in the case of a report submitted by the Air Sub-committee of that day. As a result of the consideration of that report the Committee instructed the Co-ordinating Sub-committee to seek certain powers from the House and to ask whether, in cases where the Committee as a whole considered that it was not desirable to make immediate publication, that Subcommittee should have power to make a report direct to the War Cabinet. It so happened that I was not in England at the time. I was absent for three or four weeks, and the right hon. Member for South-West Bethnal Green (Sir P. Harris) was in charge of the Committee. It unanimously passed a Resolution asking the House for these special powers. My hon. Friend the Member for Faversham was present, and, as far as I know, there has been no dissent from the seeking of these powers from any member of the Committee from that day to this. The powers were sought and the House granted them. The Select Committee since that date has


issued 36 reports. The special powers have been used on three occasions in 18 months, including the present occasion, so that previous to the case which is now the subject of discussion the powers have been used on only two occasions. It certainly cannot be said that the Committee has in any way used them excessively.
I think it is better for me at this stage to make it clear that, although the power to make representations has been given by the House to the Co-ordinating Committee, any sub-committee has full power to send its report, and, indeed, does send its report direct to the full Committee. Consequently all that the Co-ordinating Committee can ever do is to recommend whether a thing should be published or alternatively whether these special powers should be used. The decision lies with the full Committee. There is another aspect of it that I must make clear. Eighteen months ago—and it was confirmed this year—the Select Committee unanimously instructed its Chairman to take special care regarding questions which might be matters of security and gave him special instructions to bring up before the Co-ordinating Committee any question that he thought was one of doubt from the security angle. I only say that to show that the question of security is very much in the minds of the members of the Committee at all times.

Mr. Leach: Why is the hon. Gentleman hammering the question of national security at great length when he himself has expressed the view that it is not involved in this matter?

Sir J. Wardlaw-Milne: If my hon. Friend will allow me to finish my speech, he will find that I will deal with all the points. If a recommendation is made by the Chairman for consideration of a Subcommittee's report from the security angle, it goes to the Co-ordinating Committee for consideration and their recommendation to the full Committee, which makes a decision. What happened in this case? This matter was brought up in the way I have described. I, as a member of the Sub-committee, saw the report. As instructed by the full Committee, I looked at it, as I look at every report, to see whether it contained matters which it might not be advisable to publish in the present condition of affairs. I make no decision on the matter at all. My only

decision is whether it appears to be a subject that ought to be considered. Having come to the decision that the matter should be considered from that point of view, I send it to the Coordinating Committee. In the absence, in this case unfortunately, of my hon. Friend the Member for Faversham, who could not be present on that day and whose insistance on publication I have no doubt would have been made clear, the Co-ordinating Committee unanimously decided that in this case it would be better that the report should not be published. They made that recommendation to the full Committee, which met about a week later.
The House can imagine without my telling it that the whole matter was discussed at great length. In the end the full Committee decided by a small majority against publication. There is really nothing else in the story but that. We hear about the Co-ordinating Committee infringing the rights of the House of Commons, but the real fact of the matter is that these four gentlemen were out-voted. They could not, unfortunately for them, convince their colleagues that they were right.

Sir Henry Fildes: How small was the majority?

Sir J. Wardlaw-Milne: Only one. It is in the document in front of the House. By this majority the members of the Subcommittee were out-voted.
I do not wish to criticise in detail the excellent speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Faversham. On the contrary, I admired it as a first-class parliamentary performance. It increased, if that were possible, my respect for his ability. It was a very clever speech, perhaps skating, as it seemed to me, on the very edge of Order, but not being out of Order.

Sir Adam Maitland: It was a very sincere speech.

Sir J. Wardlaw-Milne: I hope that my hon. Friend will take what I have said as a compliment. I hope, however, that he will allow me to chaff him just a little. He worked himself almost up to boiling point over his concern for the rights of Parliament. He pictured himself as following a long line of back benchers who have stood up to assert our rights. My own blood is purely Scottish. I have not a drop of Irish blood in my veins, but as his


speech progressed I had a burning urge within me to take part in that fight. I felt very much that I would like to be in the fight for my rights that he was describing so convincingly. As time went on, however, I could not help beginning to wonder who the enemy was that we were to fight. Clearly it was n6t the Government, for the Government had nothing to do with this. The proposal that representations should be made in certain cases to the War Cabinet did not emanate from the Government. It was a request of the Committee itself. It sought the powers and the House granted them. Whom, then, were we fighting?
My hon. Friend presumably has been suffering under a sense of frustration and a desire to fight for something like 18 months, but his ordinarily placid nature hitherto has not, as far as I know, certainly not in the Select Committee, shown any signs of eruption. I heard nothing of his desire to take this matter up in the last 18 months. I wonder whether it is going too far to ask my hon. Friend and his late colleagues in the Air Sub-committee whether, if his view and that of his colleagues had not been over-ruled by a majority vote, we should ever have heard anything about the rights of Parliament in this matter at all. We have never heard anything about it in the last 18 months. Should we have heard anything about it to-day had it not been for the fact that my hon. Friend and his colleagues were defeated?

Sir A. Maitland: Of course the question was never raised, because the occasion had not arisen. The issue upon which my hon. Friends and myself have asked to resign is that information which in our view the House had a right to have was to be withheld. Of course, if the Committee had taken a different view the issue would never have arisen. While I am on my feet, let me say that the hon. Member refers to the first occasion on which the Air Service Sub-committee asked that a special report should be withheld from the House. That was done at the request of and with the unanimous support of the Investigating Committee— the Air Service side of it. In the second instance the same Sub-committee, with a full knowledge of the facts, strenuously and persistently objected to the information being withheld from the House.

Sir J. Wardlaw-Milne: My hon. Friend has answered me by saying that of course if he and his friends had had their way in the Committee this matter would not have been raised. That is my point. I go further and say that on the two previous occasions when the Select Committee has exercised its power, as far as I know none of these Members thought the House had been badly treated, but on the contrary thought it was right that for reasons of security the report should not be made public at that time. That is exactly the position now. The simple fact of the matter is that the majority of the Members of the full Committee did not agree with my hon. Friends. Fortunately, I was not asked to give a vote on the matter at all. The simple position is that he put it to the vote and it was not carried. As I have said, I have no quarrel with my hon. Friend's speech, far from it, but there are two points which I feel bound to mention to the House, the first because it gave rise to headlines in the press which are unfair and, I think, unjustified My hon. Friend did not say that in this case there had been undue influence upon Members. He was much too clever for that. I would invite the House to note his remarks in this connection:
It is the situation which arises when a Minister whose Departmental affairs are being investigated is put in the position of being able to exercise influence on the Members of a Select Committee as to whether or not their report should be published. Here was a case, we believe, and still believe, of bad administration, official negligence and wasteful extravagance."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 9th October, 1941; col. 1206, Vol. 374.]
The House will notice that there is nothing definitely in that speech to say that undue influence was brought to bear in this case, and I accept at once my hon. Friend's statement that he did not intend to join the two matters at all.

Sir A. Maitland: On the contrary—

Sir J. Wardlaw-Milne: I was giving my hon. Friend credit for his intention, because if his answer is that he was so intending I am bound to tell him that I know of absolutely no influence in this case from any Member of the Government, and I personally think that the fact that the newspapers—one of them, at least—which printed a report to the effect that a Minister was accused showed that a completely wrong impression had got


abroad regarding the matter. I say quite clearly and definitely that I know of no influence exercised by any Minister in connection with this matter at all.
Let me make another point perfectly clear, because I want the House to understand the position. In the case of every report which comes up for consideration by the Select Committee certain passages in it, or certain matters even in it, are referred to the Department concerned. Very often they are referred to it to make sure that the statements are accurate— they may be statements of fact or figures.

Mr. Woodburn (Stirling and Clackmanner, Eastern): Is it not the case that they are referred to the witnesses and not to the Department?

Sir J. Wardlaw-Milne: Not entirely so. I do not think I should be correct if I said that. Perhaps they are referred to the witnesses in respect of any evidence they may have given, but there are points that have to be referred to the Department concerned, in order to see that they are accurate, in the first place, and in the second place to sec whether there is any point in the report which the Committee should be advised is a matter of secrecy. When I say there is no influence that I know of brought by any Minister I wish to make it perfectly plain that I am not referring to the ordinary reference to the Department which is made in the case of every report.

Mr. Hopkinson: This is a very interesting point. Apparently a witness from one of the Services may be examined by the Sub-committee, and then that witness's evidence is disclosed to his Ministry.

Sir J. Wardlaw-Milne: It may be entirely my fault, but I did not intend to convey anything of that sort. Every witness who gives evidence may go through his evidence when it is in type, and is entitled to correct it if he has made a misstatement of fact—any trifling error— but the evidence is not shown to anyone. It is not shown to the Minister concerned or to anyone else. But when a report comes up for discussion, before, indeed, it goes to the full Committee, it has always been the custom, recognised and known to every Member of the Committee, that all matters which raise the question of security or on which the Committee are making a statement of fact are

checked, so far as possible with the Ministry concerned.

Mr. Hopkinson: The procedure is quite harmless, although it is a little out of the ordinary that the report should go to somebody else.

Sir J. Wardlaw-Milne: It is not the report which goes; it may be an item in the report—some figures or a sentence or something of that sort. The report does not go to anyone.

Mr. MacLaren: Is it within the province of the Sub-committee when they have certain evidence about which they are doubtful to discuss that part of the report with the Minister and with the Department?

Sir J. Wardlaw-Milne: Certainly not; they do not discuss it with anybody. The Sub-committee do not discuss it with anybody before it comes to the full Committee. In one sense the Subcommittee might do it before it comes to the full Committee, that is, make a reference on a question of security or of fact, but that is not a case of submitting a report. The report is not submitted at all. I wish to turn to the second statement which my hon. Friend the Member for Faversham made, and that was—

Sir A. Maitland: May I intervene before my hon. Friend goes further, because this is very important? Of course, one is under a difficulty in this matter, because my own speech attributed certain things to which I could not refer, but I would ask my hon. Friend this question: Is it a fact that in this instance the two Ministers concerned expressed the view that under no circumstances should a report be made to this House on this matter?

Sir J. Wardlaw-Milne: Not to my knowledge. They certainly did not express it in any way officially. [Interruption.] I heard none. My hon. Friend may have heard it.

Sir A. Maitland: Again I must remind my hon. Friend that it was he who read the letter to the Committee giving this information.

Sir J. Wardlaw-Milne: The letter my hon. Friend speaks of is a letter of the kind I have been speaking of, not a letter from the Minister.

Sir A. Maitland: But that letter—

Sir J. Wardlaw-Milne: I really cannot go into that now.

Sir A. Maitland: I ask my hon. Friend this: Is it a fact that he himself read to the Committee a communication from one of the Departments concerned that both Ministers concerned objected to the publication of any report on this matter on the ground, as they put it, that it was contrary to the national interest?

Sir J. Wardlaw-Milne: Yes, I have agreed with what my hon. Friend said. I read to the Committee—I cannot go into details for reasons which my hon. Friend knows—a statement giving the result of a reference of the kind I have just described. That statement was a result of this reference.

Earl Winterton: Was the Minister's name mentioned?

Sir J. Wardlaw-Milne: I think it was not mentioned at all. Ministers are not usually mentioned at all.

Earl Winterton: The Ministry's?

Sir J. Wardlaw-Milne: Yes, the Ministry's, but not the Minister's.

Mr. MacLaren: I thought the hon. Gentleman said the Sub-Committee did not discuss these matters with the Ministries at all?

Sir J. Wardlaw-Milne: I am saying they did not—I am sorry that I do not make myself plain. The Minister, so far as I know, was not consulted by the Sub-Committee. Who is consulted within his own Ministry, I do not know. Certain references are made to the Ministry as a routine process, and the opinion of the Ministry is given to this Committee. It was done in this case. It is a very different matter from the question of pressure from a Minister. It is an opinion, often on a comparatively small point in the report, asked for by the Committee itself. Indeed, if any opinion were given by the Minister in this way, it would have been the result of an inquiry from the Committee themselves. That is not pressure from a Minister and it cannot fairly be described in that way.

Mr. Woodburn: Is it not also the case that every witness is asked to indicate on his evidence any part which he might

consider to be so secret that it should not be divulged to the public?

Sir J. Wardlaw-Milne: That is so. I do not want to detain the House unduly. I am anxious, however, to give way whenever I can. The second point which my hon. Friend mentioned was this:
Are hon. Members aware how exactly this new procedure operates? If a subject matter is referred by way of memorandum from a Select Committee to the Prime Minister, the Committee are entitled to have an answer to that communication. Are hon. Members generally aware that members of a Select Committee cannot raise the subject matter of their report in this House?—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 9th October, 1941; col. 1204, Vol. 374.]
Of course, that is true but only in one sense. There is nothing to prevent the Select Committee issuing their report at any time they choose, and the moment they issue that report it can be raised in the House. It is not for me to interpret what the Select Committee might or might not do in this case, but I have no doubt that, if they were not satisfied with the reply which they received from the War Cabinet, they would decide to issue a report. It may be technically true to say what my hon. Friend said, but it gives a wrong impression. If the matter is considered sufficiently serious, Members of the Committee may raise it as soon as a report is issued. Then my hon. Friend suggested that the recommendations of his Sub-committee possibly appeared too drastic for some of his more timorous colleagues. It is not impossible that a document issued under secrecy would be a good deal more drastic than something which could be reported publicly in time of war. Perhaps that point did not strike the House. The speech made by the hon. Member for Mossley rather gave a very different idea, namely, that in something which the Committee sent to the War Cabinet they were concealing something which the Sub-committee wanted brought forward. Is it not possible that the very opposite is the case?

Mr. Hopkinson: The hon. Member is accusing me of saying something which I did not say, and I object strongly. It says that the report which went to the War Cabinet was very much more strong.

Sir J. Wardlaw-Milne: I am glad that my hon. Friend saw that point, because it is very important. I do not know what was meant by the reference of my


hon. Friend the Member for Faversham to a dispute between Members. He said that this was not a personal dispute. It is not a dispute at all. It is a mere difference of opinion between himself, his colleagues and certain other Members who supported him and the majority of the Members of the Committee. That is the whole thing in a nutshell. I desire to say as little as possible regarding the matter which was the subject of the division. The Committee decided, and they are entitled to come to that decision. I do not know how any Select Committee or Parliament itself could continue to function in a democratic country if the views of a minority are to rule. I do not know any way by which House of Commons authority can be maintained in the Select Committee if the views of a minority, however strongly held and however just they be, are to prevail over those of a majority.
This occasion gives me the opportunity, which I have wanted for some time, to pay a very sincere and whole-hearted tribute to the Members of the Select Committee as a whole. I fancy that not all Members fully realise the hours and days of work which are given in this matter to the service of the House, and we hope and believe to the furtherance of our war efforts. Sub-Committees meet in this House nine or ten times a week. Many Members have spent many days on visits of inspection in various parts of the country, at times sometimes inconvenient to themselves and often in not too comfortable circumstances. No group in the Select Committee has done better work than the four Members who have asked to be relieved to-day. Their colleagues fully realise the value of their work and their worth. The request that they should be discharged from the Committee comes from the four Members themselves but those Members have been privately and semi-publicly urged to rescind their decision and to continue to work for the Committee and give the House and the country the valuable views and work which they have been giving for some lime.
The Motion before the House is, by custom, in the name of a Member of the Government, but the Motion has nothing to do with the Government and does not affect them. It affects nobody but the four Members concerned. If those

Members insist upon resigning against the wishes of their colleagues, there is nothing more to be said. If they have changed their minds, as I hope may be the case, I hope that the Government will withdraw a Motion which nobody wants. I am sure that the Committee would then go back to their work in a much happier frame of mind in the knowledge that our tried and trusted colleagues were back with us. The House could then turn to what I may, with great respect, say are really more important matters.

Mr. Garro Jones: I think the House will agree that the hon. Member for Kidderminster (Sir J. Wardlaw-Milne) was not very happy in making his speech. I very much regret he thought it right to begin that speech by throwing charges of inaccuracy against myself and hon. Members who have resigned from the Air Sub-Committee. I shall be glad to leave it to the House to judge, when hon. Members have the whole of this Debate before them, which hon. Members have been accurate and which hon. Members have been inaccurate. The first question which is clear in this Debate, the point on which every hon. Member stands upon common ground, is that facts helpful to the enemy ought to be suppressed from publication in our Parliamentary proceedings. Not one Member of this House dissents from that principle.
The issues which have arisen are simple. They are: Who is to decide whether a matter which it is proposed to publish is likely to be helpful to the enemy or not, and, if it is decided that restraint should be exercised, through what Parliamentary procedure should that restraint be operated? Now the House has made an attempt in the case of reports by a Select Committee to dovetail this procedure of restraint into our Parliamentary procedure—not a very easy thing to do, to dovetail the suppression of reports into a free Parliamentary system. I would like the House to look at the Order by which it attempted to do that. It is upon that Order that the whole of this issue turns, and unless hon. Members have in their minds the terms of that Order—which the hon. Member for Kidderminster appears to have forgotten— the discussion will not be very clear. I am going to read the Order to the House. It was made on 26th November last:


That if the Committee"—
that is, the Select Committee—
shall appoint a Sub-committee to co-ordinate the work of other Sub-committees, such Sub-committee shall have power, in cases where considerations of national security preclude the publishing of certain recommendations and of the arguments upon which they are based, to address a Memorandum to the Prime Minister for the consideration of the War Cabinet, provided that the Select Committee do report to the House on every occasion on which that power shall have been exercised."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 26th November, 1940; col. 99, Vol. 367.]
It implies no disrespect to the House if I say that that Order was passed in a hurry. It has been passed twice by the House, first on 29th May, 1940, and again in the new Session, on 26th November last. On the first occasion on which it was passed, it was passed on the day after the Belgian capitulation in the precise form in which it was put upon the Order Paper by those nameless persons whom I will call the "Parliamentary managers." The hon. Member for Kidderminster said that the Government do not come into it at all, but there are certain circles which do come into it, and if the House will accept my term of "Parliamentary managers," these were the people who put on the Order Paper, and secured the passage of, this Order.

Sir J. Wardlaw-Milne: I plead ignorance at once as to who the "Parliamentary managers" are. I know all about the usual channels; are those what the hon. Member is referring to? I do not even know to whom he could be referring. Those powers were sought by the Committee themselves; it was they who asked the Government and the House for them.

Mr. Garro Jones: I am perfectly aware of that. I do not propose to attempt to define who the "Parliamentary managers" are, but nevertheless experienced Members of the House will know what I mean. I contend that the Order as passed was ambiguous. It contained at least two latent ambiguities which have now arisen to confront the House and which have given rise to the very difficulty which is now engaging our attention. The first ambiguity which the Order contains is this: Who is to take the initiative in raising the question of whether the public; interest arises in the publication of a report or not? The hon. Mem-

ber for Kidderminster told us that in point of fact these reports are sent to the Department.

Sir J. Wardlaw-Milne: I purposely did not make that statement. The report is not sent to the Department at all. For the third time I want to make it quite clear that I have never made such a statement. What I said was that certain items in the report, certain sentences or paragraphs, might be submitted if there were any doubt in the minds of the Committee or those concerned either on the question of security or of fact. I have never said that the reports are sent.

Mr. Garro Jones: I will take the statement as made.

Sir J. Wardlaw-Milne: As made originally.

Mr. Garro Jones: As made originally. It makes no difference to my argument. There are sent to the Departments for their observations minutes, or facts, or items of evidence, and it is at that stage —and the hon. Member for Kidderminster will correct me if I am wrong—that the question of public security arises.

Sir J. Wardlaw-Milne: I am very sorry to correct my hon. Friend, but that is not so. These are sent completely automatically before the report goes to the full Committee at all. Actually, the person who brings up the question of security is the chairman—myself. On the instructions of the full Committee, I have to look over every report from that point of view, and if I think there is any question about it, as I did in this case, my instructions are to send it to the Co-ordinating Sub-Committee, who will decide whether they think fit to make a recommendation regarding publication or not. I hope I have made it clear.

Mr. Garro Jones: The question is, Who is competent to decide whether public security is at issue or not? Surely, the chairman of the Select Committee on National Expenditure, with all his wide experience, is not competent to come to a decision like that without consultation with the security officers of the Department?

Sir J. Wardlaw-Milne: He does not come to any decision.

Mr. Garro Jones: If that power is to reside in the chairman of the Select Committee, then the whole of the publication


of these reports at any given time will depend upon the temperament and character of the chairman of the Select Committee.

Sir. J. Wardlaw-Milne: No. All he can do is to make a recommendation.

Mr. Garro Jones: I only interrupted my hon. Friend once. The point I wish to establish is this. The Order as made by the House leaves ambiguous the question of who should take the initiative in raising questions of public interest. That is the first point which I wish respectfully to submit to the House for reconsideration with a view to clearing up and defining the Order which was made. The hon. Member for Kidderminster said that Ministers do not come into it at all. I respectfully but emphatically dissent from that observation. The Ministers do come into it, because when the matter is sent to the Department that matter goes before the Minister concerned, and therefore before any report of a Select Committee is published the Minister is apprised, not perhaps of the precise terms of the report, but of the material with which that report is going to deal.

Sir Percy Harris: May I, as an ordinary member of the Committee, say that that is a complete travesty of the fact? It is a libel on all members of this Committee. We would not tolerate that for a moment. We are all Members of this House, and we would not permit our chairman, nor any chairman of a Sub-Committee, to inform any Government Department what was going on inside the Committee.

Sir Harold Webbe: Pure nonsense.

Mr. Garro Jones: I have no wish to generate heat, but we are now in the presence of a difference between the hon. Member for Kidderminster and the hon. Member for South-West Bethnal Green (Sir P. Harris). I intend that what I have said should stand upon record and should be considered by the House when they are reviewing the position. The second and lesser ambiguity which was contained in this Order is to be found in a portion of the last paragraph which says that the Select Committee shall report to the House upon every occasion on which this power shall have been exercised. There is no time limit within which the Select Committee should report to the

House. I believe that the report which has given rise to our present difficulty has been sent long ago to the Prime Minister, but I am not aware that the House of Commons has been apprised of the matter

Sir J. Wardlaw-Milne: I am afraid my hon. Friend is not sufficiently informed on a large number of matters. The fact of the matter is that the report of the full Committee that these powers have been exercised is made at the next meeting of the full Committee. It is already on the records of the House.

Mr. Garro Jones: At any rate, there is no time limit in the Order as passed by the House, as I think the hon. Member will agree, within which that report should be sent to the House. In point of fact varying periods have elapsed between the sending of a report to the Prime Minister and informing the House that it has been sent. There can be no question that there has been of late a tendency among Ministers to resent and to resist the activities of the Select Committee on National Expenditure.

An Hon. Member: Who said so?

Earl Winterton: The Prime Minister attacked your own chairman.

Mr. Garro Jones: There have been a great many public whisperers going about criticising not only the hon. Member for Kidderminster but every other Member of the Select Committee. The basis of these criticisms has been that that Committee is exceeding its terms of reference, that it is interpreting as matters affecting national expenditure matters affecting national policy and national administration, and it is said that the Select Committee has been placing too weighty an interpretation on its powers. I was sorry to see that the hon. Member for Kidderminster, knowing that had been the case, taking the attitude which he has done to-day, because I hope the House will realise that we are engaged, although it may seem to be a matter of procedure, on a fundamental issue affecting the control of this House over expenditure. Two hundred years ago it was the custom for the Privy Council to send for Members to explain -their votes. That seems almost like an anachronism. Not long ago an hon. Member who is now a Minister was sent


for by the Attorney-General to hear menacing language which the present Prime Minister strongly disapproved of. Are we quite sure that nothing of that kind is going on to-day? We have certainly had the Air Minister making light of reports of the Select Committee. I have heard him rebuke different Members of the Select Committee for entering into controversy on facts judicially found by the Select Committee.

Mr. R. Morgan: Is the hon. Member suggesting that the objection of the four Members of this House to service is that their reports have been overridden by some Minister, and especially the Prime Minister himself? If that is their interpretation, I think they ought to say that they agree with what the hon. Member is saying.

Mr. Garro Jones: The hon. Member for Kidderminster read what the hon. Member for Faversham (Sir A. Maitland) stated concerning the intervention of Ministers in these matters. I am content to put it in this way, that whereas nominally this appears to be an issue between the Select Committee and the operating Subcommittee, the whole question is, Who is to decide when the matter is one of public interest and when the matter is one merely affecting the reputation of Ministers? All of us have had experience of putting down particular Questions and receiving Answers that it would not be in the public interest to answer, when all the time the information we sought has been published in journals in America or in this country. All these signs go to show that the House is in danger of tolerating encroachments on its control over expenditure merely because these encroachments are being made by almost imperceptible degrees. That is a situation to which the House ought to give its immediate and earnest attention.
What ought to be done? Admittedly it is easy to do the wrong thing, but it is perfectly certain that to do nothing at all would be to do wrong, and it is possible that some small amendments in our procedure would meet, not only the scruples —the right and admirable scruples, in my view—of the Sub-committee, but might also meet the views of the Select Committee itself, and preserve the control of the House over expenditure intact.

I am going to make a proposal that the Government, in consultation with the chairman and members of the Select Committee, should take into review the Order which the House passed giving the Co-ordinating Sub-committee these powers, with a view to amending it and clarifying it, to put it no higher than that it should operate on the principle that the Operating Sub-committee should be the first part of the machinery which should take into consideration questions of public security.
I have no objection in war-time to the taking into consultation of the security officers of the Department concerned. It is evident that a layman unacquainted with all the issues involved cannot always tell whether a question of public security arises or not, and if Ministers and Departments are to be taken into consultation in war-time by these Operating Sub-committees I prefer that it should be done openly and as a recognised part of our procedure, than by other, I will not say subterranean, channels, but than that it should be done unofficially, to put it no higher. If the Operating Sub-committee consider that questions of national security arise, it is simple for them to delete those dangerous elements from their report but it, after they have sent the report to the Coordinating Sub-committee, the Co-ordinating Sub-committee still think there is something in that report affecting national security, then the Co-ordinating Subcommittee should itself have power to report it to the Prime Minister. In the event of dispute between the Co-ordinating Sub-committee and the Operating Sub-committee then, and then alone, should the Select Committee be brought in. I hope that the Select Committee will not stand on punctilio because of any objections to giving these powers to the Co-ordinating Sub-committee so as to prevent the widening of the channel of disclosure in cases where military secrets have been brought before the Operating Sub-committee, and the Government or the official channels, if you like, want to stop it at a lower stage than the full Committee, and therefore empower the Co-ordinating Sub-committee to do the job.
There are two minor suggestions I would make. One is that the Coordinating Sub-committee which has


been entrusted with these new and very important powers, should have its quorum altered from two to three, four or five. I should prefer five, because when the quorums of Sub-committees of the Select Committee were fixed at two it was on the assumption that the total membership of the Sub-committees was four. The Coordinating Sub-committee is a much larger Sub-committee, and yet it has the same quorum as the other Sub-committees. I think it would be an additional safeguard if the quorum of the Co-ordinating Sub-committee were increased from two to five. I would further ask that this should be considered. The quorum of the Select Committee itself, which would come into these matters by way of an appeal body, is seven out of a membership of 32. Everybody knows that many meetings of this Committee are purely formal, and therefore it is perhaps difficult to obtain more than seven members, and in such cases seven are perhaps quite enough. But where they are adjudicating upon such—

Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Sir Dennis Herbert): The hon. Member is going beyond the Question which is before the House. It is not relevant on this Motion to discuss the whole machinery of Select Committees.

Mr. Garro Jones: I appreciate, if I may respectfully say so, the force of what you say, Sir. I am not discussing the machinery of the Select Committee in regard to its general functions, but only the operation of such machinery in regard to the Order passed by the House on 26th November last.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: If the hon. Member will confine himself to existing circumstances he will be all right. He is getting beyond that. He is even proposing alterations in the machinery of the Select Committee.

Mr. Garro Jones: I will leave the matter there. Perhaps I might be permitted to add one sentence, and to ask whether, for the operation of this particular Order, the provisions which have been made in regard to quorums could not be amended? I hope I have not detained the House too long on what may seem a narrow point, but I hope the Committee will not be content to allow

the discharge of these Members to take place. That would put their successors in an extremely invidious position, and it would detract from the authority of the Select Committee and of all the operating Sub-committees. The Prime Minister has told us that the House of Commons is the foundation of the war effort. He has also told us—I have not his exact words here, but I believe I quote them correctly from memory—that the public interest is a plea which should be sparingly invoked. The public interest is a plea that is not being sparingly invoked, it is being very frequently invoked; and in some circumstances, as we believe, it is being improperly invoked. The suggestions I have made would result in some safeguard against that. The House knows that the Prime Minister himself would scorn to invoke the plea of the public interest to cover up some fault that he might have committed. Other Members should be asked to conform to the same standard. I think the Prime Minister should ask them, and should tell the House that he has done so; because the House of Commons is not only the foundation of the war effort; it is the foundation on which a peace structure will be built. If the Prime Minister will steadily resist, even with all his preoccupations, any attempt to weaken that structure, that in the end will not be the smallest part of the debt that the House of Commons and the nation will owe to him.

Sir Percy Harris: I do not bother the House very much, but I feel some obligation to support the hon. Member for Kidderminster (Sir J. Wardlaw-Milne), who has so ably and wisely guided the work of the Select Committee. I took a very active interest in the original establishment of the Select Committee. The Government of that day were not particularly enthusiastic about bringing it into existence, but it is fair to say that when it was formed it was a reflection of every section in the House of Commons. Not only were the official parties, Conservative, Liberal and Labour, represented, but we actually had an independent Member of the House upon it. I think it is reasonable to say that the Select Committee attaches great importance to the independence of the executive. And, as the hon. Gentleman quite rightly said, they do not show any particular tenderness to Ministers; on the


contrary, they have been most frank in their criticisms.
I happened to be particularly associated with the obtaining of the system of the special powers' report to the Prime Minister direct. I am not giving away any secrets when I say that the officials of the House thought that to obtain such powers was entirely against all the traditions of the House of Commons, and that when we sought them— and we sought them, curiously enough, on the initiative of the Air Sub-Committee —we were not welcomed particularly by the Government and the Prime Minister. I know that it is only a coincidence that we sought this on the initiative of the Air Sub-Committee, and I am not making any point about that. The Prime Minister, as a good Parliamentarian, was not anxious that we should he allowed the privilege of direct access when we ask for it. He rather understood that this was a departure from tradition. It was only as a result of pressure by the Committee itself that these powers were obtained. It is only fair that this should be said in justification of the attitude of the Prime Minister. Having got these powers, we use them very sparingly. We have to persuade 30 Members of this House that it is not in the public interest to report to this House, and only on two other occasions have we been able to persuade that number of Members.
When we come to the narrow issue of a Sub-committee's report on a particular problem, I have rather a detached point of view, because I did not happen to be present at the time, and I did not vote. What influenced the Committee? I think it was this. The Sub-committee felt constrained to present to the main Committee a truncated report of the publication. They were not prepared to give all the facts, all the figures, and all the information that justified their conclusion. Therefore, the majority of the Committee felt that if we were going to justify the many severe criticisms and charges that were to be made a fuller report should be published. The Sub-committee took the line that that fuller report should not be made public. A report has gone to the Prime Minister giving far fuller information than it was possible to give to the House of Commons, the public and the Press.

Mr. Ammon: Surely the right hon. Gentleman is mistaken in saying that the Sub-committee objected to a stronger report going to the House? Possibly that was the view of the Co-ordinating Sub-committee.

Sir P. Harris: The report that was sent to the Prime Minister was very much fuller, much more extended, and justified the conclusions come to. I was very sorry that my four hon. Friends chose to resign because they did not get their way. We do not want them to resign. I think the wisest course would be, now that they have, quite properly, ventilated their point of view, for them to go back and become members of the main Committee and again carry on their work. I can assure them that they will be welcomed. Then we can pass on to the next business. In the meantime, the report has gone to the Prime Minister, and I am going to say, on behalf of the Committee, with the support of the chairman, that if we do not get a satisfactory reply from the Prime Minister, if the matters contained in that report are not dealt with in a way which we consider satisfactory, we shall not hesitate to bring the matter before the House of Commons in due course.

Mr. Hely-Hutchinson: The fact that I have been so fortunate as to be able to catch your eye, Mr. Speaker, suggests that this is not entirely a private fight and that a mere Irishman may join in. My hon. Friend the Member for Kidderminster (Sir J. Wardlaw-Milne) spoke in circumstances of considerable difficulty and subject to a good deal of cross fire, and it seemed to me that at times he and his questioners were not talking about quite the same thing, so that certain parts of my hon. Friend's speech may have left some confusion in the minds of hon. Members. But I felt in my own mind that my hon. Friend's speech brought this matter back to where it really belonged. The specific matter before the House is that here are four members of the Sub-committee who have asked to resign. They have asked to resign because certain powers granted by this House to the Committee on National Expenditure were exercised by the Committee in a way contrary to the views and strong convictions of these four members. Therefore, they felt that they wanted to resign. That is all with which we have to deal. It is solely their own affair


whether they resign or not. I personally agree with those who have said that they hope they will not resign. But it would be a very useful by-product of this happening if the result of it all is to cause, as suggested by the hon. Member for Faversham (Sir A. Maitland) and the hon. Member for North Aberdeen (Mr. Garro Jones), the terms of reference of the Committee and subsequent Instructions to be carefully reviewed by this House.
I speak with some little past knowledge of this general subject, because I was a member of the Committee myself at one time, and I myself sought discharge— which was granted—for reasons that were connected really with the terms of reference of the Committee. There was no Debate on the occasion of my seeking discharge If there had been such a Debate, I think the House might have had a few minutes of good honest fun. But I feel that my hon. Friend the Member for Kidderminster was very near the mark when he suggested that a large part of the speech of the hon. Member for Faversham, and perhaps I might add, of the hon. Member for North Aberdeen, was skating on the very edge of Order, and I would be equally skating on the very edge of Order if I were to attempt to reply to them in too much detail. There are, however, one or two statements made especially by my hon. Friend the Member for Faversham which, having been made, cannot go wholly uncommented upon—I do not say answered. For instance, he states that the Subcommittee in considering this particular item—the nature of which I do not know at all, and I am very fortunate in not knowing anything about it at all—said:
It seemed to us certain that after three years, no useful result could accrue, and accordingly we recommended unanimously that the experimental work should be stopped."— [OFFICIAL REPORT, 9th October, 1941; col. 1206, Vol. 374.]
If I knew all about this matter, I might agree with the hon. Member or I might disagree with him. But neither he nor I nor the Select Committee is charged by Parliament with the business of deciding whether or not that experimental work should be stopped. We have a very large Committee which we call the Cabinet which we have charged with the business of deciding these matters. I think that in these experimental matters

the proof of the pudding lies in the eating. There were instances in the last war of very large bodies of opinion being convinced and repeating again and again that both tanks and big battleships were a sheer waste of money. These things have to be worked out by trial and error, and it would be unfortunate therefore if this statement should go out as the last word on the subject. In general and in view of the fact that the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Kidderminster has brought the Debate to its proper sphere, I do not propose to develop now what I had in mind to say except to mention that the principle for which I sought resignation from the Select Committee on National Expenditure was that the Committee seemed to me to be seeking too much to do the Government's job. I know that one must be careful not to offend against Lord Baldwin's advice to would-be politicians not to be too logical, but when Parliament has a Committee such as the Cabinet charged with the work of Government it is not entirely logical to appoint another committee which continually investigates and reviews a great many decisions that the Government have made. That appears to me like keeping a dog and barking oneself. For that reason, I hope that the policy will be that the House will once more review, and very carefully consider, the terms of reference under which the Committee on National Expenditure exist and perhaps make some closer definition of them and some improvement in their general character.

Earl Winterton: I should like, as one who is not in any way connected with the dispute that has arisen, to make a suggestion to the House, which, I think, though I have not had an opportunity of consulting anybody, might be approved. Those who have listened—and I have listened almost throughout to this discussion—cannot but feel very strongly that we have in the members of the Select Committee, whichever view they take in this particular matter, true and faithful servants of the House and of the public. I would like to pay my tribute to their work. I entirely dissent from what my hon. Friend has just said. I think that his views are his own and those of nobody else in the House. The House on the whole is most grateful to the Select Committee and believes that it performs its duties in an excellent way.


It is deplorable in the interests of these servants of the House, who entirely leave their own political opinions behind when they join these committees, as has been proved by the Debate, that there should be this difference of opinion expressed so strongly. It would be even more deplorable if the dispute between certain members of this Select Committee, equally sincere on both sides, should detract in any way from the usefulness of that body. If there should be—I hope there are not— any Members of the Government who regarded the Select Committee with suspicion, I can imagine how delighted they would be if the result of this discussion was to injure the usefulness of that body by making Members of the Government say in private, "How these people quarrel among themselves."
How are we to avoid that? The obvious way will be in the form, respected and well known, that hon. Members who wish to resign will reconsider their resignation. Obviously they cannot be asked to withdraw it unless the Government take action. I am well aware that, if I were a Minister representing the Government, it would be correct for me to say that this matter in no way concerns the Government but is a dispute between private Members. But, in fact, the Government come into the picture very considerably. In the first place, the Government must be presumed, in the absence of any evidence to the contrary—it would be a most wounding reflection to think on the contrary —to be well-disposed to this Committee and regard it as doing excellent service to this House and to the nation and as being helpful to the nation. Therefore, the Government cannot wish to see any breach in it. How could these resignations be avoided? The hon. Member who initiated the Debate the other day brought forward, as he was entitled to do, facts which left the impression upon my mind, and certainly upon the minds of many outside this House, that there was a very serious state of affairs in a certain Ministry which required to be dealt with. That matter has been brought up in Debate in a way—through no fault of my hon. Friend the Member for Faversham (Sir A. Maitland)—which is calculated to do the greatest possible mischief to the public weal. The Government have made no speech on the subject. May I repeat

for the benefit of hon. Members the charges which we have heard? In his speech my hon. Friend the Member for Faversham said:
It referred it to a factory, and it was known that this factory, which was to be erected for the purpose of manufacturing certain aircraft and accessories, was 12 months behind scheduled time, that only 25 per cent. of its machinery had been placed in position and that the housing conditions of the workers for the factory was most unsatisfactory … from time to time schemes of the Air Ministry and the Ministry of Aircraft Production should be reviewed and that where the Minister concerned was satisfied that the original purpose of a scheme could not be served, it was important that it should be abandoned at the earliest possible moment."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 9th October, 1941; col. 1205, Vol. 374.]

Sir Robert Young: That is part of the report of the hon. Member which was accepted by the full Committee.

Earl Winterton: That is true, but it has a bearing on the matter at issue. Otherwise, there would have been no object in quoting it. I am not taking sides in this conflict, and I beg hon. Members to consider the effect it is having on the public mind. Here is a matter which the House has not been allowed to consider in its entirety. More serious still, the hon. Gentleman the Member for Mossley (Mr. Hopkinson), and others outside the House, have read into that reference by my hon. Friend the Member for Faversham something which may or may not be in it, but which clearly concerns, as it happens, someone who occupies a very high position in this country. Everyone knows to whom I refer. You are giving to the enemies of this country, including Nazi broadcasters, material for use which ought not to be at their disposal. The effect of this situation is to suggest that there is a hidden scandal which is not being properly dealt with. As I have said, I am not taking sides in the controversy, and I suggest that the matter should be dealt with on the basis that we should have from the Financial Secretary to the Treasury, or some other representative of the Government, a statement to the effect that the matters which are in dispute, which have been brought to the notice of the Prime Minister, will be dealt with by the Prime Minister personally at the earliest possible moment, and that information as to the action he proposes to take shall be communicated to the House. If that could be done by the Government,


my hon. Friends who wish to resign would be in a position to consider their resignations, because their purpose would have been served—namely, action would have been taken on this report.

Mr. Higgs: I should like to congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Faversham (Sir A. Maitland) on the excellent speech he made when he opened this Debate and at the same time to tell the House of the admirable manner in which he took the chair at all times in our Sub-committee. I should also like to pay tribute to the hon. Member for North Camberwell (Mr. Ammon) and the hon. Member for Central Bradford (Mr. Leach), who are of different political colour from myself. We have sat on this Committee for a period of two years, and we have yet to have our first serious differences. We have had difficult problems to consider, and we have had slight differences of opinion, but on no occasion have we had a split vote, and for these reasons I regret having to ask for my discharge. As for the suggestions that we are giving information to the enemy, I am getting a little tired of hearing that excuse put forward. We are keeping information from the British public and the enemy but I consider that on this occasion it would have been far more valuable to give the information to this House and the country and make the Germans a present of it. There is nothing the Germans would have copied, and the right course would have been to present the report as completed. I happen to have here two or three extracts from the 20th report of the Committee, and with the permission of the House I will read two or three lines:
Unions concerned are not permitted to work overtime without the permission of the district delegates to remedy what is an intolerable position in time of war. So far others have been completely unsuccessful. In the locality complained of the introduction of pneumatic rivetting in ship repairs has been and still is stubbornly resisted. Apart from the complaints about the speed of ships, it is claimed that their design does not accord sufficiently with the adopted modern practice of most shipowners.
I know the contents of the report in question, and I can assure the House that there is no more information of an unsatisfactory character being given to the enemy than there is in the lines I have quoted. What can the Germans read into these lines? We have consider-

able labour troubles, and the design of our machinery is not up to date; it is of an inferior character. Something has been said about the Prime Minister dealing with matters of this description. He would deal with them far more effectively than the Air Services Sub-committee, but the Prime Minister is directing the destiny of the nation, and he has problems of far greater magnitude than this to deal with. You cannot expect him to deal with the 101 matters of this description that might be sent to him from time to time. The House appointed a Select Committee to report to the House. My hon. Friend the Member for Kidderminster (Sir J. Wardlaw-Milne) referred the report to the Co-ordinating Sub-committee. He was quite in order in doing that. I do not know for what reason he did so, but he assured the House that Ministers had not influenced him. I wonder whether permanent officials have had anything to do with the matter and whether they have advised him. In any case, the report was diverted to the Co-ordinating Sub-committee in the first instance.
I should like to know how long that Sub-committee considered the report. The Air Services Sub-committee had considered it for 10 weeks or more, and had travelled up and down the country examining witnesses. According to information I have received, the Co-ordinating Sub-committee hardly read the report, and I do not think they were more than 10 minutes in giving their decision. They advised that the report should be sent to the Prime Minister. Those members of the Co-ordinating Sub-committee were members of the full Committee, and obviously, having taken a decision in the Co-ordinating Sub-committee, whatever came up in the discussion in the full Committee they had to abide by the decision they had taken. We were defeated by one vote, we accepted the defeat, and the only thing we could do was to resign.
It is exceedingly difficult to debate an abstract, unknown monstrosity of this description. The House asked for the minutes, and received them. The contents of this document are not worth the paper they are written on, for all the information that is given to the House, with the exception of the Members who were present and the voting of the Committee. There are two reasons we ask for our discharge. One is that we dis-


agree with the full Committee, and the other is the specific waste that is taking place in connection with the unknown problem before us. That waste is continuing, and will continue, unless the House does something about it. [An HON. MEMBER: "Then why resign?"] We resign because we consider it to be our duty to do so rather than to continue as members of the Sub-committee. As to our relations with the main Committee, all the way through they have been excellent. The Air Services Sub-committee have had no greater differences with the main Committee than any other Sub-committees have. We have abided by their decision at all times, and we have agreed to their correction of our reports. It has been argued that if the minutes had been rescinded and another vote had been taken, it would have been a case of minority rule. But at times the minority is in the right, and I consider that is so on this occasion.
With regard to national expenditure, it is sometimes said that the cost does not matter as long as we get the goods. The cost does matter. The difference between income and expenditure has to be met by inflation. Inflation has taken place already, and one of the objects of the House in appointing the Select Committee was to endeavour to reduce the inflation to a minimum. The gap has to be bridged by inflation. What an outcry there was before the last war if a penny was added to the Income Tax; if 2d. was added, the Government of the day had to resign. My hon. Friend the Member for Mossley (Mr. Hopkinson) referred to a case involving £15,000,000 or £20,000,000. Does the House realise that that means 3d. or 4d. in the £ on Income Tax? The purpose for which the Select Committee were appointed was to reduce expenditure of that description when they come across it. We have come across one case and we are not allowed to make it public. Is it not our duty to hand in our resignation in those circumstances? What alternative have we?
We shall feel the effect of this excessive expenditure when the war is over. Hon. Members have heard of the "Hungry Forties" and we shall have them again if we do not take every opportunity we can to reduce wasteful and extravagant expenditure. I often think that if many

people who have duties to perform with regard to making economies had £5 invested in the Government, they would take a very different attitude towards the money that is being squandered to-day. I say that money is being squandered. We are working very inefficiently in very many respects. The Select Committee was appointed to try to remedy that position. We have had difficulties before. The Air Services Sub-Committee have already had one report diverted to the Prime Minister. On that occasion, they did not resign. We have had difficulties with officials, we have been side-tracked on one or two occasions, but on those occasions we have not taken exception to what has happened, and we would not have done so on this occasion and we would not have made the stand we are making had we not considered that the particular problem under consideration was of such vital national interest. The scandal in question cannot be kept quiet much longer. It has to come out, and it ought to have come out a considerable time ago; and it is a pity that this state of affairs should have to arise before expenditure of that description could be stopped. The Sub-Committee are prevented from doing what they consider to be their duty, and therefore, we ask the House for our discharge, hoping that we have contributed our quota to the proceedings of the Select Committee on National Expenditure. I conclude by saying that I endorse the recommendations of my hon. Friend the Member for Faversham that the Select Committee should take every possible step to prevent a recurrence of what has happened, and that the House should insist on having more details concerning matters submitted by the Select Committee on National Expenditure.

Sir Robert Young: I rise to speak as a member of the Committee who found himself in disagreement with my hon. Friend the Member for Faversham (Sir A. Maitland), and I want immediately to say that there is no one who would welcome more cordially than I would a decision by my hon. Friends to withdraw their resignations. I have been told by some hon. Members that they regard this matter as one of very serious importance, and in speaking I shall try to conform with the mood of the House. I do not think the hon. Member for West Birmingham (Mr. Higgs) was quite fair or


correct in his remarks concerning the Coordinating Sub-committee. If he will look at the report, I think he will find that in the division in the Select Committee several members of the Co-ordinating Sub-committee supported my hon. Friend the Member for Faversham. Therefore, I do not think it was fair to suggest that simply because they were members of the Co-ordinating Sub-committee, they would stick together when the full Committee were considering the matter. I do not like the term applied to this matter by my Noble Friend the Member for Horsham (Earl Winterton), who spoke of a dispute. There is no dispute in the Select Committee. There is a difference of opinion as to what is or is not in the national interest to be published. That is not a matter of dispute. As to those who are so much concerned about the independence of the House and object to the restrictions which they say have been placed upon its liberty, quite apart from anything that has arisen in the Select Committee they could at any time have brought their grievance before the House and asked it to rescind the restrictions which they thought were imposed upon its liberty.
When this Motion was first proposed, I listened with care to the statement of the hon. Member for Faversham and his complaint against the exercise of the powers conferred on the Select Committee by the House. Such explanations of resignations are usually received by hon. Members with sympathetic interest and sometimes, I think, with an avid expectation that some startling disclosure is going to be made. In this case no such thing could happen. As a result there has been some disappointment to some Members and to some sections of the Press. I noticed with satisfaction that the hon. Member studiously avoided charging any of his fellow-members of the Select Committee with a desire to excuse, minimise or hide any waste, inefficiency or delay by those criticised in the unpublished part of the Sub-committee's report. On the other hand, there appeared to be a suggestion that some Service Department or high official had been guilty of such action. He does not challenge the right of the full Committee to decide that publication of the elided part of his report was not in the national interest. Nevertheless, it is that decision which is in question—a deci-

sion strictly in accordance with the powers asked for by the Select Committee and granted without dissent by this House. The hon. Member's action, therefore, is a criticism, or perhaps more a complaint or a protest, against the authority given by this House to the Select Committee. But the curious thing is that he and his resigning colleagues were quite aware of that authority all the time and said nothing against it, as far as I know, until they found themselves in disagreement with the full Committee on what was or was not in the national interest to be published. The House gave the Select Committee power to report direct to the Prime Minister. If by a majority it decided to do so, then the Select Committee has not transgressed in any way.
There is something still more curious to my mind. The present Solicitor-General, when chairman of the Air Sub-committee, found himself in a difficulty which was the same as that which confronted the Select Committee on this occasion. There was information which it was considered not wise to publish, and he wisely advised his colleagues to seek power from the House to report direct to the Prime Minister instead of publishing material which the Committee thought was against the best interests of the country. The House set up the Select Committee, and the Committee set up eight Sub-committees, but it was never assumed that any of those Subcommittees, although fully acquainted with the details of the information under consideration, should dictate willy nilly that their report should be published without amendment, deletion, or extension. Such an assumption would have reduced the full Committee to a state of irresponsibility for the substance and recommendations of its own reports.

Sir A. Maitland: My hon. friend can only be making these observations because he is applying them to this case. May I ask him whether he remembers that apart from objection, criticism or amendment, members of the Air Sub-committee offered to the full Committee to redraft their report in any form that was thought necessary to cover the question of national security?

Sir R. Young: I remember that something was said about redrafting, but I also remember that it was said there was a hurry about the report, and I do not


remember hearing any statement in the Committee that the thing would be done. I am sure the House would not expect any committee, if it felt that a report submitted to it contained matters dangerous to the well-being of the nation, to publish that report. That was the opinion of the full Committee, and owing to that the four Members seek to resign. I trust the House will realise that there was no objection to the criticisms contained in their report. The question was whether it was advisable to print certain parts of the report. Who should determine whether it was in the national interest? Surely the responsible full Committee and not a sub-committee should do that. The full Committee came to the conclusion, as recorded in the minutes:
That the matter of paragraphs 25–32 be referred to the Co-ordinating Sub-committee, and that it be an instruction to the Subcommittee that, in consultation with the Subcommittee on Air Services, they do consider all the evidence available, and address a memorandum to the Prime Minister under the powers conferred on them by the Order of the House.
In doing so, the Committee were only doing what they were instructed to do by this House, Some of us on the Committee have reason to complain about some of the things said as a result of this difference of opinion. The hon. Member for Mossley (Mr. Hopkinson) told us in his speech that he knew what the unpublished report dealt with. Why was he silent? It is not characteristic of the hon. Member to be silent in those circumstances. He is his own party in this House. As a loyal member of a party I confess that at times I envy his independence. It is very nice to be a free lance. Nobody will call him to book. He says thousands of people knew, and know what the unpublished report was about. Why have they kept silent? What is all the fuss about?

Mr. Hopkinson: I kept silent because this was not by any means the worst case. There are much worse cases than this.

Sir R. Young: Why did not the hon. Member tell us about those worse cases? What is he covering up? What need has he to cover up anything if he knows all about these things? He tells us that thousands of people know what is in the unpublished report. Then why have not

we come to know it? Did the Press know? Why were they silent? Who muzzled them?

Sir A. Maitland: We want to know that.

Sir R. Young: I am perfectly sure that last week they were all agog to know, but there was nothing in the Press because they did not know. Therefore, the arguments of my hon. Friend the Member for Mossley appear grotesque, fantastic and absurd so far as they concern the question of the publication of a report which he says so many people know about. I go further and say that the national security will not be safeguarded if it is always assumed that what we discover for ourselves is known to our enemies and therefore should be broadcast far and wide. Besides, what right has the hon. Member to dogmatise about what the report dealt with? What right has anybody to dogmatise and say that any particular information about any war activity is known to our enemies? The only people who can dogmatise about that, in my estimation, are those directly or indirectly in collusion with our enemies.

Mr. Hopkinson: Is the hon. Member referring to me as being in collusion with the enemy, because, if so, I hope he will have the decency to make what he is saying perfectly clear?

Sir R. Young: I am saying, What right has the hon. Member to dogmatise—

Mr. Hopkinson: Exactly; and I would call the hon. Member's attention to what I said on that occasion, which certainly could not be truthfully described as dogmatising. I said that I had enough respect for the Intelligence Department of our enemy to presume that when tens of thousands of our own people knew about this that they too knew about it, and that is not dogmatism.

Sir R. Young: I will give the hon. Member the credit of saying that he was not dogmatising. It was on account of the way in which he put it in saying that the enemy knew. I say that nobody can be insistent upon these things and declare, as the hon. Member seemed to declare in this House, that the enemy knew, unless such a person were in collusion. I am not referring to the hon. Member now. I take this matter very seriously. One serious statement made by the hon. Member for Faversham was in implying that


some Service Department or high official had sought to bring pressure to bear for the publication or non-publication of some part of the report.

Sir A. Maitland: That has been stated several times. Perhaps I might just recall to the House the circumstances in which I was dealing with the question of the influence of witnesses. I have refrained from saying that this was a procedure adopted as an innovation, and it was our duty, as Members of this House, to see how this innovation operated. Speaking from experience, I said there were certain dangers to the House itself. Then I went on to give instances. One instance was that it was within the power of witnesses to influence members of a Select Committee in deciding whether or not a report should be published. If the hon. Member asks me specifically whether that influence was exercised in this instance, I say, "Certainly."

Sir R. Young: I am glad the hon. Member interrupted me, because his interruption bears out what I said. The impression was certainly given that a Service Department or a high official had brought pressure to bear on the hon. Gentleman or upon his Sub-committee to do something.

Sir A. Maitland: I have never said that.

Sir R. Young: It amounts to that.

Sir A. Maitland: I am sorry, but I must make it plain. The point is this: Under the procedure which is now in operation on the part of the Committee, it is possible for Ministers to influence members of the Select Committee in deciding whether or not to report to the House. I repeat that influence—I did not say pressure upon our Sub-committee or upon any individual member—was used in the case of Ministers whose Departments were being investigated. This influence was invoked, not by the Ministers themselves, but by the Committee themselves and by the hon. Gentleman himself.

Sir R. Young: The only difference between the hon. Gentleman's statement and my own is that I regarded it as meaning pressure, whereas he says it means influence. I do not recall that on the full Committee anybody has tried to influence the contents of the report other than members of the Committee themselves. I

am sure it has never happened on the War Sub-committee of which I am a member. I do not feel inclined to believe that any Minister, civil servant, or public Department would be so foolish as to do any such thing on a Committee which had power to get every item of information it demanded. But if it has occurred, I have no hesitation in saying to the hon. Gentleman, "Do your public duty, and expose the person or persons who have tried to cause the Committee to do something other than what it is entitled to do by the powers conferred upon it." In my estimation, it is not enough, in a question of this kind, to refer in the House of Commons to an earnest conversation with a particular person and then say that it ended in disagreement, because that also seemed to infer that the disagreement was about matters in the proposed report.
The hon. Gentleman made two suggestions to the House. He said that several of the Ministers—whom he indicated— should take an interest, I presume in the unpublished part of the report. What does he mean by that? Does it mean that the Prime Minister should not have studied carefully the facts placed before him by the Co-ordinating Sub-committee, and, having the facts before him, have consulted those concerned so as to determine whether the views expressed were justified and to decide also whether the recommendations should be enforced? If it does not mean that, then he and his Subcommittee know quite well that matters of policy are outside the scope of the Select Committee. Someone has said—and I agree with him—that it is not within the power of a Committee or Sub-committee to decide, in spite of any past inefficiency or waste of energy or money, whether a certain implement of war should or should not continue to be produced. They are not engineers, they are not scientists; only experts can decide whether the article referred to is a failure or will be a failure, and that therefore its production should cease.
The hon. Member wants the House to retract the decision that the Sub-committee should report direct to the Prime Minister when in doubt as to the wisdom of printing some portion of a Subcommittee's report. I trust the House will do no such thing, but if and when it does, I suggest that it should also decide that such matters should be issued for private


information to Members for secret Debate at a Secret Session of this House. In so doing, I am emphasising that I believe that what was in this report was matter which, in the public interest, should not have been published. If no such condition is made, you may have certain Subcommittees asserting a right to the publication in full of their reports against a decision by a majority of the full Committee to the effect that it is not in the public interest to do so. That would lead, in my opinion, to disagreements, dissension, and ultimately public perplexity. I would ask the House to remember that it is only a matter of opinion as to what should or should not be published in the interests of the nation, or as to what should or should not go to the Prime Minister. Do not let us confuse the issue. We must not allow any Sub-committee to threaten, to dictate to or disintegrate the full Committee, especially such an important body as the Select Committee on National Expenditure which has now been set up. In so doing, they will uphold, in my estimation, not only democratic decisions but democratic government.

Sir George Schuster: I was particularly anxious to intervene for a short time in this Debate because I happened to be one of the members of the full Committee who was unable to be present when the decision was taken which has given rise to this Debate. Therefore, I should like to testify that if I had been there I should have very strongly supported the majority decision. By so doing I believe I would have increased the majority from one to two. I believe that the hon. Member for South West Bethnal Green (Sir P. Harris) has expressed a similar view so that it might have been further increased. There are one or two matters I should like to mention which have not been mentioned yet in this discussion. As a member of the Committee I have derived one very great satisfaction from this Debate, in that the House of Commons has shown a great deal of interest in what happens in this Committee on National Expenditure, though it is perhaps rather unfortunate that the first time that it has been the subject of a full discussion that should have been in relation to a disagreement.
I think indeed it is worth while calling the attention of the House to the fact that

although over 30 reports have been presented to the House, there has never yet been any Debate in the House on any of them. I hope the House will excuse me if I add a few further remarks on this subject. Those of us who sit on this Select Committee have a very difficult task. We have limited time, the work has to be fitted in with other work and it is difficult to get Committees together. Each Sub-committee has a vast field to cover. It is impossible for any Sub-committee to examine fully the field for which it is responsible. Therefore, it has to apply a process of selection. One of our great difficulties is, if I may so put it, to get pointers to the matters to which we should direct our inquiries. I speak as a member of a Sub-committee which has put into one of its reports a definite appeal that Members of this House should call our attention to facts which they think worthy of inquiry. I venture now to put it to the House that that has not received a very wide response. If the House is interested in our task, then I think all Members of the House could do a great deal to help the Select Committee in its work.
Passing on from that to the subjects under discussion, one can deal with these in technical terms as regards procedure or one can try to get deeper into the substance of what is involved. I am not going into questions of procedure. I would only like to say, in reference to the speech of the hon. Member for North Aberdeen (Mr. Garro Jones), that he has made a number of very elaborate suggestions, but I would put it to the House that the real issue before us is whether the House has confidence in this Select Committee on National Expenditure or not. If the Committee commands their confidence, then I can assure the House that the rules of our procedure are perfectly adequate for us to carry out our business properly. On the vital question which has been raised—namely, as to who is to decide whether a particular issue is one on which a question of public interest arises—the decision essentially and in substance rests with the Committee itself. If the House cannot trust the Committee to take that decision, I think that the House should express that in some way or other.

Mr. Garro Jones: Why does the hon. Member suppose that this House gave the


power of making that decision to the Coordinating Sub-committee? What was in the mind of those who drafted that Order, and the mind of the House when they passed it?

Sir G. Schuster: The hon. Member is trying to lead me into just those somewhat unimportant and complex grounds which I want to avoid. The position is that it lies with the Co-ordinating Subcommittee to raise the question, but afterwards it is the full Committee that has to take the decision. My point is that, however the hon. Member likes to argue, the responsibility really does in substance rest with the full Committee.
Turning to what I consider to be a much more important issue, one is in a very great difficulty in discussing it because one is not allowed to reveal the subject matter that gave rise to all this dispute. But my hon. Friend who moved the Motion originally did give a certain amount of information. I do not know whether he was skating on thin ice or was going over the edge or whether he managed to observe all the proprieties which should be observed. But, at any rate, he did tell the House that the whole of this recommendation referred to experimental work. It is not part of the ordinary activities of the Ministry of Aircraft Production. It is a question of an isolated experiment. The point that I want to put to the House, a point which I think is of substantial importance, is this. We have, as I have already said, a very difficult task on these Committees. We are not technical experts; we are a lay Committee. When a question like this arises, of whether it is in the national interest that a particular kind of technical experiment should go on or not, I feel myself in a very great difficulty. I am not omniscient—as my hon. Friend the Member for Mossley (Mr. Hopkinson) always professes to be.

Mr. Pickthorn: He is not present.

Sir G. Schuster: I wish that he had not: left, because I want to make an observation about his speech. I think it was a very mischievous speech. I want to say about my hon. Friend what I have often been tempted to say before—and I say it with regret, because I have great affection for him. He is one of those people who, when you hear them speak,

make you think that they possess all wisdom, that they speak with authority —not as the Scribes and Pharisees. You think that about my hon. Friend until he gets on to a subject about which you happen to have special knowledge yourself, and then you are apt to find that his speech is recklessly inaccurate and misleading. He told us that he knew all about this case, that it was a case involving not hundreds of thousands but millions, and that it was analogous to others which must come before the Select Committee, involving 20 or 30 times as much. How does he get this information? If he has it, why does he not bring it with all supporting facts, before the Government or before our Select Committee? I put it to the House that speeches of that kind, not followed up by facts, cause grave disquiet in the country—and if we are to speak of helping the enemy, I can think of nothing which is more calculated to help the enemy.
I want to say something more on this particular subject, and again I speak with restraint, because I do not want to stray over the borderline of propriety. I can put what I want to say like this. I feel ready to be an extremely severe critic of certain things that are going on. Nobody, even Members sitting on the Government benches, can feel satisfied that we are doing in all respects as well as we ought to do. That statement cannot be disputed. But if one looks back over the record of this country in the war there is surely one activity in which we can claim to have shown outstanding excellence—that is, in the design of our aircraft. There has never once in this war been any complaint, such as one remembers so well in the last war, that the enemy had better aeroplanes than we. In fact, it has been commonly acknowledged that ours are far better than the enemy's. Great credit seems to be due for that somewhere—I do not know where it should go. Now that has a direct bearing on this particular case. This is a question of experimental expenditure on types of aircraft. I do not mind confessing to the House that, as a layman, I hesitate to come down to this House saying, "Here is a disgraceful example of waste of money." Should not all of us who are laymen hesitate to do that? I think it right to put that point, because


it directly concerns the question at issue. I think the House has been misled as to the seriousness of this case. And, as to that, I come back to what I said about the task of this Committee. We cannot deal with everything; we have to try to concentrate on the things of importance. There may be things which, even though small in themselves, illustrate some widespread inefficiency in the system. On the other hand there may be isolated cases, which look very important, but which have less significance. I do not think that we in the Select Committee ought to indulge in a sort of witch-hunt. We want to know where the big issues are. It is not isolated instances, but examples of inefficiency in the main lines of activity on which we should really concentrate.

Sir A. Maitland: That is absolutely wrong. It is because there are great issued involved that we have taken up a strong line.

Sir G. Schuster: I am glad to find that my hon. Friend respects the same principles as I do, but I dispute his right to pass judgment on me as being entirely wrong. I am entitled to my opinion as much as he is to his, and we have an honest difference about it. I adhere to what I have said, and I think it right to say these things to the House.
There is one other thing I want to mention in regard to what the House may, in fact, have been gravely misled. No one can deny that this has been put before the House as a sort of case where one side of the Committee favours some form of appeasement while the others are courageous, patriotic people who long ago rejected appeasement as the method to be tolerated. It is fair to explain to the House that that is not the case at all. I myself, in supporting the particular action that has been taken, would have supported it because I thought it was the most effective way to get quick results. We proposed to put before the Prime Minister a full detailed account of the whole transaction in a way it could never have been put in a report which had to be published. We thought that that was the quickest way of getting action. But we did not commit ourselves at all as to our final course. If the Prime Minister does not give us satisfaction, it is open

to us still to come down to the House, give all the facts and say that public interest as regards giving information to the enemy must take second place, and that the importance of this issue overrides everything else. Surely if, after having tried to do the matter in this way, we then found that it did not produce results which we considered effective and satisfactory, and if we then came and reported to the House we would produce a much greater effect than merely by publishing a recommendation in an emasculated report made to the House. In saying what I have, I refer particularly to the hon. Member for Mossley who represented to the House that we had to refer to the Prime Minister the question of whether this was a matter of public interest or not. It was nothing of the kind. We referred the matter as a case on which we wanted to make recommendations and required urgent investigation, and we are entirely free to consider our future action in the light of the reply that we get. Therefore I myself feel strongly that the line of action we have taken is the most effective in the national interest.

Mr. Ammon: I want if I may to bring the House back to the position as outlined by the hon. Member for Faversham (Sir A. Maitland) when he opened this Debate with a speech that was forceful, restrained and discreet. Before I do so, however, let me remind the hon. Member for Walsall (Sir G. Schuster) that he is completely mistaken in saying there has been no discussion in this House on any report submitted by the Committee. Actually there was a full discussion in the House on the question of the Abbotsinch scandal, or mistake— whichever you prefer—during which it was indicated that there was a tremendous waste of public money. An attempt was made by the Minister concerned to defend the Government but afterwards he had to recede from that position. Let me say at once that the tact that I am taking opposite sides from that of my hon. Friend the Member for Newton (Sir R. Young) goes to show that there are no party politics in regard to this matter. It is something which transcends party differences, something which does not even involve the Government. It is a matter which concerns the House solely and absolutely. This Sub-Committee was


set up in order to be the watch dog of this House as far as the expenditure of public money is concerned, and its duties became particularly important in view of the fact that no detailed Estimates of large expenditure are now set before the House. To a large extent this Committee carries out the duties which would normally be carried out by the House, as a body, were full Estimates put before the House.
Everything that goes on in these Committees is secret and privileged. One is not allowed to divulge the proceedings. Even the Prime Minister and members of the War Cabinet were not to be told what happened. Let us admit that, to a certain extent, this Sub-Committee has been "hoist with its own petard." That is to say, the innovation of going to the Prime Minister came as a suggestion from this Sub-Committee. May I point out to the hon. Member for Kidderminster (Sir J. Wardlaw-Milne)—who as Chairman of the Select Committee on National Expenditure does his job with distinction and credit—that he did not quite stand up to that high level when he seemed to suggest to-day that the hon. Member for Faversham had sailed close to points of Order and various trifles like that. Surely he could have paid no greater compliment to the hon. Gentleman in that he managed to keep within the bounds of Order in making such a statement before the House. Indeed, a high official of the House said to me afterwards that in all his experience he had never heard a Member able to put so narrow a point while keeping within the bounds of Order all the time. Therefore, I do not think the hon. Gentleman need be much concerned about any criticism on that score.
I am sure I am not giving anything away when I say that as soon as the Sub-committee started work we found it difficult to get some information from the Department and certain steps had to be taken by the then Chairman to overcome those difficulties. The hon. Member for Kidderminster may have given the impression that there have been very substantial changes in the membership of the Sub-committee, but it is the same Sub-committee as at the beginning, with the exception of a change in the chairmanship. Soon after the Sub-committee came into being, we came across a matter of such serious importance that we felt

that in no circumstances dare we bring it to the House, and what is more, we felt it was so serious that we dare not take it to the whole of the Select Committee, but that it should go to the Coordinating Sub-committee. We took that step because we felt that the matter was so serious and the repercussions would be so tremendous, and a Resolution was passed by the House giving us authority to send the report to the Prime Minister, not for the Prime Minister to say whether or not it was a matter that would endanger public security if it were disclosed, but for him to take such action as he could, because it was felt impossible for us to give any publicity to it.
The House should remember that the request for those powers was based solely on the ground that we felt the matter was of such tremendous seriousness that we did not dare risk public security with regard to it, but in seeking that other means of dealing with the matter, it was not intended by us that the Resolution of the House should be used to cover up any failings or shortcomings on the part of Departments or Ministers. That is the issue at the moment. The members of the Sub-committee do not for one moment suggest that they should not have due regard to the strong argument concerning majority government, but there do come times when things are so important and the issues are so narrow that one must differ from a very narrow majority, as we have done in this case. Moreover, I challenge altogether any statement that the majority decision in the Select Committee was taken on the ground of public security. That decision was taken on the ground of public interest, but not on the ground that security was endangered. In fact, the report was not considered strong enough by the majority of the Select Committee, and I venture to believe that the chairman of the Committee himself did not take the view that public security was in any way endangered by the report.

Sir J. Wardlaw-Milne: Whatever my own views may have been in the matter, I sent it to the Co-ordinating Committee for consideration. Therefore, I must have considered that point arose.

Mr. Ammon: The position is that the decision was not taken wholly on that ground. The question we have to con-


sider is whether or not we should save the faces of certain people who made errors or misjudgments, or whether it is the duty of the Sub-committee, as we held it to be, to report to the House what we consider to be great waste, bad administration, and extravagance. That is the issue with which we are concerned at the present time. We have no quarrel with individual members of the Select Committee. Responsible men do not lightly cast aside associations they have built up over two years in interesting and important work—and I think I can say without presumption that we have been engaged on important work—and particularly associations they have formed with individuals which have resulted in closer bonds of friendship than would otherwise have existed. We do not cast aside such associations unless compelled to do so by something over and above our particular interests. It is solely on that point that the issue is drawn at present. The argument used by the hon. Member and others is that, if they sent to the Prime Minister reports which they felt it was not wise to publish to the House, on the ground of financial security, and if they did not get satisfaction from the Prime Minister, they would probably take steps to bring the matter to light here. That means that they are going to defy even the opinion of the Prime Minister that national security is endangered, placing themselves in a very much more difficult position. One finds it very difficult to accept that sort of argment as having any basis or any power at all.
We are not actuated by any narrow spirit at all. We are not lightly going to set aside majority rule, but we have the right to point out that the majority is so narrow and the position so wide that the matter is one calling for further consideration by the Committee. It is not a question of "Against whom are we going to fight?" We are not fighting anyone. We are not quarrelling. What we are concerned about is that millions of money are being wasted, while labour is being diverted from things which are necessary to carry on the war and, in spite of seeming to take an obstinate line, it is our duty to bring that to the House. There is no other means of doing it, because if, once a matter has been sent to the Prime Minister, we cannot discuss it, it then becomes a matter of Privilege as far as

the Committee is concerned and we are shut down. Looking at it in any way, the House must accept the fact that the resigning members are not actuated by any narrow spirit. All that we are concerned about is efficiency and ensuring that the nation gets full benefit for the money that is being expended and that people, however high their position, should be brought to the judgment bar of the House in order that we may know whether or not we are getting full value for money. We get condemnation of workmen who are not pulling their weight or doing this, that or the other. It is equally important that those in higher positions should have to face charges of falling short in any way.
It is with that question alone that we are concerned. We do not say that our report is infallible. It may be all wrong. That is for the House to determine when the Department has put up its defence. We do not claim that some defence may not be found. There is evidence given by the hon. Baronet the Member for South-West Bethnal Green (Sir P. Harris) and enforced by the hon. Member for Walsall (Sir G. Schuster) and the hon. Member for Kidderminster, not as to whether our findings are right or not, but rather that they might have been put in very much stronger terms.
Those terms were of such a nature that we think they ought to have come to the House instead of being dealt with in this way. There is one thing I want to say in justice to my hon. Friend the Member for Faversham. The Co-ordinating Subcommittee is made up of chairmen of the different Sub-committees, and when this report was considered by that committee the chairman most concerned was not present and the report was passed in a very few minutes. There ought to have been some way of delaying consideration of the report so that the hon. Member could have been there to put his case. Whatever may be said with regard to the fact that the Committee was not influenced by the Co-ordinating Sub-committee, when men have decided to take a certain line it is difficult for them to go against it on a committee of which they are members.

Sir J. Wardlaw-Milne: But some of my hon. Friends did often change their minds.

Mr. Ammon: But a number came into the Committee prejudiced by the decision taken by the Co-ordinating Sub-committee. It is a matter not of party policy, but of public concern that when questions arise of great importance relating to waste of money, misdirection of labour, and so forth, and a majority of only one makes a decision, those questions should be brought to the attention of the House.

Mr. Craik Henderson: I should like on behalf of the obscure Members of the House who are not members of the Select Committee to say a few words. This discussion has been very interesting to Members who are on the Select Committee, but those of us who have not that high privilege are hearing something on which we cannot form any opinion. We have heard that a question of great importance is involved, and on the other side we are told that it is a simple question. The direct question is a simple one, but there is also a bigger question on which the House cannot form any opinion because the matter is secret. We are being asked to say whether the majority of the Committee was right or wrong on the question whether this report contained things which it was not in the public interest should be disclosed. Even about that there is some confusion. It is not clear Whether the objection was on the ground that it was against the public interest or whether because it was likely to give information to the enemy. There is no Member of the House for whom I have a higher regard than for my hon. Friend the Member for Faversham (Sir A. Maitland), and I suggest to him that it is unfortunate the question should have arisen in this way.
I suggest that the difficult is in the terms of reference which the House gave to the Committee and that the larger question might be raised in a Secret Session on the terms of reference. That is the; only way in which we can discuss what lies behind this matter. We cannot take any decision on the request of four members to resign because they disagree with the majority. Having accepted the decision of the House given in May and November last year, the correct remedy of the Sub-committee, I suggest, was not immediate resignation. If the War Cabinet should decline to accept their recommendations then, and then only, in

my view, they might be justified in tendering their resignations. Alternatively, the remedy was to come here to ask that the terms of reference should be amended. I suppose it is too late to make an appeal to the members of the Sub-committee, but I know the House would welcome it if, even at this late hour, they would agree to withdraw their resignations and on a subsequent occasion would come forward with the request that the terms of reference should be amended. It is a subject which the House would like to have fully discussed, and I appeal to them to withdraw their resignations and proceed along those lines.

Mr. MacLaren: In all the speeches that have been delivered in this Debate there has been a sort of repetition of two impressions of what happened. I want to make an appeal to the Government. I understand that the Motion before us cannot be withdrawn unless the Government withdraw it, and the Government, I understand, cannot very well take the responsibility of withdrawing it unless they have some idea of the feelings of the hon. Members of the House involved in the Motion. I think I am expressing the feelings of the House when I say that all of us would regret their resignations at this moment. The other day when the hon. Member for Faversham (Sir A. Maitland) delivered his speech I knew intimately his feelings. It was a most trying experience for him. Knowing him as I do I can assure the House that he made that speech with deep and sincere conviction, feeling that he was performing a public duty to the State. He and his colleagues having this deep conviction in their mind, I am going to ask them whether, after this prolonged Debate, and after they have impressed the House with the importance—indeed, the dangerous importance—of the question they have raised, they will not now reconsider the position they have taken up. I know that it is difficult for them, feeling as strongly as they do. They will say, "Suppose we agree to go back on to the Committee, what have we effected by the action we have taken? What satisfaction can we have? If we go back on the Committee, shall we again be subject to some sort of inquisitorial dictatorship which will hedge us around in the discharge of our function of inquiring into these very seri-


ous charges; are we to go back on to the Committee and have no power to give the House of Commons a full report on the information we have? '' We are all grown men here, and surely we can at least face a difficulty of this kind. I am now appealing to the Government to consider the withdrawal of this Motion and asking them, at the same time, to give some warranty or some guarantee to the four hon. Members of this House—

Mr. Quibell: And the House.

Mr. MacLaren: —and the House, because after all they are doing it on behalf of the House. I ask the Government to give some sort of guarantee to this Committee that it will have an opportunity for a full expression of its case, subject to national safety. I am appealing in a double way, to the Government and to the four Members of the House, to come to some agreement now. I appeal to any one of the hon. Members who formed the Sub-committee to express his views on this matter, with your permission, Mr. Speaker. If this Debate continues, it will not be for the good and wellbeing of the House of Commons and the State. The hon. Members have ventilated their case and have performed a great public duty, and I ask whether some accommodation can now be come to and some guarantee given to the courageous members of this Sub-committee. I honestly believe that they have sincerely done a public duty.

Mr. Leach: After the speech which we have just heard I want the House to believe that we are not four stupid people standing out on a question of dignity or anything of that kind. We hold to the belief that we are actuated by one of the best principles upon which the Government of this House could possibly be founded. As one of the four Members, I would be very glad to respond to the appeal that has just been made, provided that some assurance were forthcoming from responsible quarters that the matters we have raised would be dealt with immediately. I want it to be properly understood that we are just as much alive to questions of public safety and giving comfort or help to the enemy, as any other Member of this House. We considered that matter very carefully when we drafted our report, and we were fully satisfied that neither of those transgressions was made in that report.
Let hon. Members consider for a moment. Suppose a Government Department were engaged in a costly and foolish enterprise, wasting large sums of money, the substance of the taxpayer. Suppose a committee comes along, investigates the enterprise and says: "This must stop." It is forthwith stopped. Suppose that the Germans knew all about it throughout the whole period, and they suddenly learned that we had stopped this thing; would that be a source of comfort to them? I imagine not. I do not think that that issue was involved for an instant. The right hon. Member for South-West Bethnal Green (Sir P. Harris) suggested that we were a little anxious to see that the minority view should prevail, and that we were not good democrats. As a matter of fact, precisely the opposite is the case. We put the matter to the vote and were defeated. What was our course? We could not pursue it any further and we had to resign. The matter was one of serious principle and no other course seemed open to us. If we said now: "All right, we are sorry we resigned"—which, of course, would not be true—"and we are ready to go back," what sort of guarantee is there that we should not suffer humiliation by a recurrence of the same kind of experience of which this is the first example? I want it to be understood that we are not stupid, we are open to reason, and if any assurance can be forthcoming from responsible quarters that this matter is to be put right immediately, we shall be very glad indeed to respond to the request made.

Sir A. Maitland: It is only by permission of the House that I can intervene again in this Debate, and perhaps I may have that kind indulgence. The request which has been made is really addressed to the Prime Minister himself, for presumably any assurance such as my hon. Friend would like to have ought to come from him. I would like to say, and I am glad to take the opportunity of doing so, that whatever has been done there is nothing which suggests a lack of confidence in the Prime Minister on the part of the members of the Sub-committee. The question was the procedure which has been adopted with regard to the whole matter and the need for bringing about a speedy decision with regard to what has exercised our minds. No man who has been a Member of this House for some


years could fail to be moved and impressed by the atmosphere which has prevailed during this Debate. It is quite obvious that even as between those who have different points of view there is a sincere desire that we should be united and determined to the maximum extent. I hope nobody will think that we resigned in order to kick up a fuss about it. If we go back to the Committee, it is merely in answer to the request which has come from all quarters of the House that we take up our burden once more, if we can have an assurance such as we require. I believe this Debate will have served to cause the authorities to give immediate attention to this matter, and I sincerely trust that in the future hon. Members will not assume that because our action was perhaps drastic, it was actuated by anything but the most proper motives, namely, a desire to see the successful prosecution of the war. I would like the House to be indulgent to my hon. Friends and myself. We will do our best to continue to serve it.

The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Captain Crookshank): While it is not for me to comment at all on this Debate, I think we must all appreciate the very great sincerity with which the four members of the Sub-committee have in turn addressed the House. Now the hon. Gentleman who initiated the Debate has risen and said that in response to the appeal of others in this House they are prepared to resume the work which they have made so peculiarly their own during recent months. in reply to that, I am quite sure that everyone here would like to say, "Thank you very much for corning forward to do it again; we know what you have already done, and we look forward to further good service in the work which lies before you." But there is the difficulty, of course, that in order for that to be done the Motion has to be withdrawn. Therefore, I rise to do that. I think that is as far as I can take it. On the other hand, I quite appreciate the general trend of the Debate, and indeed the last few words of the hon. Member have been that the House would like some sort of assurance as to what was going to happen about the report. I can only say that the report, as we have heard not infrequently during this Debate, was a secret report submitted to the Prime Minister. It is not therefore for me, in his

absence, to pledge the Prime Minister or anyone else to particular action with regard to it. The best way I can leave it—and I hope it will be satisfactory to everyone—is that, of course, we shall call the attention of the Prime Minister to what has been said in this Debate, and he has quite an acute enough mind to read between the lines. If necessary, some arrangement can be made through the usual channels, or a Question be put down when a considered answer can be given. I do not think it would be satisfactory for anyone to give a pledge or anything definite to-day. The gist of the Debate will certainly be reported to the Prime Minister, probably as soon as the House rises. If the House will accept that, I am prepared to ask leave to withdraw the Motion on behalf of the Government, and again express our thanks to the hon. Gentlemen who are prepared to resume the work.

Motion, by leave, withdrawn

Orders of the Day — CIVIL DEFENCE ("TRUTH").

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."— [Major Dugdale.]

Mr. Wedgwood: I am sorry to take up the time of the House, particularly on a subject which affects the freedom of the Press. In normal times I do not think there is any more ardent advocate than I am of the freedom of the Press in this country, not only to print the things we like but to print the things we do not like. On that principle, I and a great many Members of the House take a stand in normal times. But in war time the situation changes. There is an old Latin tag, "Inter arma silent leges." In war everybody has to consider first the safety of the State. Normally there is nothing I dislike more than the State doctrine; but in this war liberty, freedom, and all those things which we normally support in this country are desperately involved. In this war the safety of the State must come first. It is by that test that the Home Secretary has to judge this great question of whether papers should be suppressed or not. It was on that test that he closed down the "Daily Worker." His argument that convinced me at the time was that the continued publication and circulation of the "Daily Worker" in the workshops of


Glasgow and elsewhere was slowing down war production. If that was so—and nobody could know better than the Home Secretary—I think that that action was justified; I do not say that it is justified now.
It is by that test that I want the House to consider the question of the continued publication of "Truth." "Truth" is a weekly publication which used to have a great reputation in the days of Henry Labouchere, when I was young. It has now become a public danger. It is widely read, not so widely as the "Daily Worker," but very widely in the clubs and messes, by that large class of people who are referred to as the governing class in this country. Its circulation may not be very large, but for every copy issued many people read it. The effect of the continual propaganda put forward by that paper may be very great. Not only is it perpetually putting forward the policy of peace and reconciliation, and generally the old isolationist policy, but it is also, as it were, the nucleus of the controlled Press which would spring up if this country were successfully invaded.
I have to prove that the policy of this paper is dangerous to our war effort. I say that it is pro-Fascist, it is anti-Semite, it is pro-peace, it is anti-Churchill, it is anti-American, it is pro-German, and it is now anti-Russian. The whole House will agree that if that policy is being advocated week after week in this country, it is bad for morale, and that steps of some sort should be taken to stop it. So far as anti-Semitism is concerned, I need not make any quotations; there have been numerous libel actions, there have been attacks by the paper on such people as the right hon. Member for Devonport (Mr. Hore-Belisha), the hon. Member for North Lambeth (Mr. G. Strauss), Neville Laski and Gollancz. There may have been attacks upon non-Jews as well, but these people have certainly been attacked, and in some cases libel actions have been brought and substantial damages secured.

Mr. Haslam: Have these people been attacked solely because they are Jews, or for other causes?

Mr. Wedgwood: I do not know about that, but I say that it is an indication that the paper is anti-Semite when so much of that sort of stuff is brought forward. I

pass to the charge that it is pro-Fascist and pro-German. I ask the House to consider the attitude of this paper towards the "Link," which used to be the Fascist organ in this country. This, I admit, was before we went to war. On nth August, 1939, this paper said—

Mr. Pickthorn: I think the right hon. Member has inadvertently misstated the position of the "Link," or else my memory is wrong. I thought that the organ of the Fascists was Mosley's "Action."

Mr. Wedgwood: The "Link" was a pro-German organisation. Here is the quotation from "Truth":
The 'Link' is quite open about what it is doing. Many anti-Government propagandists pretend to be actuated by national welfare, but their plan is to push Britain, by hook or by crook, into a war with Germany.

It being the hour appointed for the interruption of Business, the Motion for the Adjournment of the House lapsed, without Question put.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."— [Major Dugdale.]

Mr. Wedgwood: On 14th February, 1940, they said:
If peace were concluded with Germany, and there is good reason to believe that it could now be concluded on terms which would satisfy any reasonable person. …
Again, on 23rd February they spoke of the peace policy of the B.U.F., that is the British Union of Fascists, before and after the war as the same:
Mind Britain's business.

Major Procter: Is that the "Link," or is the right hon. Gentleman reading from "Truth"?

Mr. Wedgwood: I am reading from "Truth." This has been going on all through. I think that anybody who used to read "Action" and followed these extracts would see that practically the same arguments and stuff which appeared in "Action" appear now in this paper called "Truth." I come next to the anti-Churchill attitude of the paper. It says:
Hitler bears close resemblance to Mr. Churchill.
That was just a month before the war, at a time when Mr. Churchill was not in a position to influence our policy. Then, after the war:


Mr. Churchill added another distinction to his conquest in the course of his speech on the wireless. He is the first man to call the Germans ' Huns.' 
Again:
''Whenever during the last war Mr. Churchill edified us with a cocksure pronouncement on the progress of hostilities it was always invariably the prelude to a bad reverse.''

The Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Peake): May I ask the right hon. Gentleman when giving his quotations also to give the dates of the issue in question, so that they can be checked in my Department?

Mr. Wedgwood: I will give you the whole of the notes, and you can check them up afterwards.

Mr. Peake: Other people too want to know the dates.

Mr. Wedgwood: They can look them up in "Truth" themselves; it will do them good. That was in November, 1939. On 16th December, 1939, it says:
Imagination boggles at Mr. Hore-Belisha and Mr. Winston Churchill wondering a single second over the failure of their Departments to meet their obligations. What they would worry themselves sick about would be if their own salaries were not paid promptly.
On 23rd February, 1940, it says:
Now that the sound and fury of Mr. Winston Churchill has been hushed awhile "—
He was not Prime Minister then—
when our Prime Minister quits his post in a middle of a war to cross the Atlantic we expect him to return with something more substantial than even an Eight Point Declaration. The humiliating impression is conveyed of the British Prime Minister standing cap in hand on America's doorstep or gang-plank.
That was on 22nd August, 1941. In October, 1939, there was this statement:
There is only one man in England who, in Mr. Churchill's reckoning, is fit to govern and that man, of course, as you will guess, is Mr. Churchill.
That is the attitude of mind towards not merely a man in office but a man who has put up the best fight for us against the Germans. I now come to the paper's anti-American attitude On 29th September, 1940, they said:
America is willing to fight to the last Englishman.
On 6th October, 1940, they said:
For 18 months Americans have feared any European who stood for peace in Europe. The U.S.A. is fiercely anxious for Europe to

go to war because when Europe is at war, American industry booms.
I ask the House to consider not only the effect of all this on our morale but on our relations with other countries. On 3rd November last year it was stated:
Germany is not one of the favoured belligerents because she has no money. If that disability were removed America would supply arms to Germany as willingly as to us.
On 19th September, this year, the paper said:
While one welcomes the Prime Minister's assurance that every effort will be made to secure a peaceful settlement in the Far East, it is imprudent to put oneself into a position where one's life depends on blood transfusion from an expectant and an ambitions heir "—
that is America—
Even if America is willing to save the patient, what will her fee be? Home consumption is cut down to the bone. This is a decisive moment in a war, into which, if we had been influenced by their importunity, we should have plunged a year earlier when we were more unprepared.
On 15th August, 1941, they said:
We are glad to co-operate with Americans, not to pull their chestnuts out of the fire.
Is this what one would call "helping the war effort"? In connection with the meeting in the Atlantic it was said:
I suggest to Mr. Alexander and Mr. Brendan Bracken that the appropriate name for our next battleship to be launched would be H.M.S. Hollywood.
There was, as hon. Members know, a moving film taken of the service that took place on board. As to their pro-peace attitude, I will give one quotation, dated 6th October, 1940:
The fact which appalled me was the state of mind that had been reached, in which peace itself should be a threat.
They know as well as we know that peace would not be peace, but a truce. The basis of all the propaganda against us to-day is that we should be sensible and shake hands with Germany to-morrow, and have our throats cut about five years later. Let me give another quotation to show how they are pro-German. In a reference to the right hon. Gentleman who is now Home Secretary, before he became a Minister, they speak of him as "London's little dictator," and say:
London's little dictator suggested to Sir John Anderson that he should watch the people who up to the outbreak of war wanted to strengthen relations with Germany. Mr. Winston Churchill on the Treasury Bench nodded his head in vigorous approval.


On 24th November, 1939, there was a column letter by Major-General Fuller white-washing, German concentration camps by way of counter-blast to the Government's White Paper on German atrocities. Major-General Fuller was connected with Joyce in the Fascist movement. He backed up a book called "The Truth About This War," one of the pacifist publications which came out during the "phoney" war. On 26th July, 1940, there was a leading article insisting on Germany taking her proper place in the leadership of Europe. That was just after France went out of the war. As to their attitude to Russia, here is a quotation dated 8th August, 1941:
Let us not deceive ourselves. If Russia does succeed in turning the tables on Germany, it would be she who would issue the invitations to the peace conference and we should be lucky if we got one.
I think I have read enough to show even those people who think that "Truth" is the old newspaper they used to read when they were young, that at the present time this newspaper has become a positive danger, and that it is putting over propaganda which is very dangerous to our relations with other countries and dangerous to morale in this country. In my opinion, it is far more dangerous than anything that was put out either by "Action" or by the "Daily Worker" in the old days. In those cases one knew that the newspapers were brought out by the Fascists or the Communists, but here there is a newspaper which, masquerading as an ordinary journal, gets to people who otherwise would not read it.
The question is, What can be done about it? The other day I asked the Home Secretary whether he would treat this newspaper either as he had treated the "Daily Worker" or stop it by means of preventing it from getting paper on which to print its stuff. He said—no, he could not do it. I do not know why he could not do it, but there are other ways in which the same results could be achieved. As in the case of all newspapers, there is somebody at the back of this newspaper. It must be owned by somebody. Somebody has put up the money. In the old days, we knew that it was Labby's newspaper and that he found the money for it, and found also the money when he lost the libel actions.
I have gone into the question of who owns the paper. There are 1,920 shares, of which 1,800 are in the name of Lloyds Bank, probably held for other people as nominees. They are £10 shares. It is not an excessively capitalised company and I do not believe that, with a capital of £18,000 they can possibly have paid their way, seeing the damages that they have had to pay in these libel actions, if they have paid them—if they have not insured against them. I judge from a study of the kaleidoscopic changes that there have been in the directorate that the bulk of the shares originally came from the National Publicity Bureau and the Conservative Party funds, but of course I cannot be certain about this. The National Publicity Bureau was an organisation got up, in 1931 I think, to put across the policy of the National Government. I do not blame the National Government or the Conservative Party for using their funds for propaganda. It is perfectly justifiable, and I have no doubt that in the early days, when "Truth" was a first-rate, respectable organ, they got value for their money.
As far as I can make out, the chairman of the business committee of the National Publicity Bureau is Lord Luke, and most of the directors seem to be connected with him, and it is possible that it may be his private money and not the money of the Bureau 01 the Conservative Party. I cannot tell about that but, looking at the names of the directors, it is pretty obvious that there was some connection between support of this paper and the National Publicity Bureau. That is now a great advantage because, while it is true that the directors have changed frequently, the people who own the bulk of the shares can, in future, change and direct the policy of the paper if they wish. It is really not necessary to suppress the paper or stop it getting newsprint. All that is necessary is to change the editor and put into that responsible position someone who supports the present National effort.

Mr. A. Bevan: How long is it since contact between the Conservative Central Office and "Truth" has broken down? I understand that until quite recently the hon. Member for West Lewisham (Mr. Brooke) was an official of the Conservative Central Office and at the same time chairman of "Truth."

Mr. Wedgwood: I did not want to bring in the hon. Member's name. Changes in directorship have been very frequent.

Mr. Bevan: Is it not a fact that until quite recently the hon. Member for West Lewisham was chairman of "Truth" and at the same time an official of the Conservative Central Office?

Mr. Wedgwood: I do not think he is so any longer. I think that the actual chairman is the present- editor, Collin Brooks.

Mr. Bevan: At the time these statements which have been quoted were made, was it not a fact that the Conservative Central Office had a direct official connection with "Truth"?

Mr. Wedgwood: That is one of the things into which I should like the Government to inquire.

Major Procter: Is it fair for the hon. Gentleman to make an innuendo which he is not prepared, or is unable to justify.

Mr. Bevan: I am asking whether it is a fact that at the time some of these statements were made there was a direct contact between the Conservative Central Office and ''Truth'' in the person of a Member of this House who was chairman of the committee and a member of the Conservative Central Office organisation?

Major Procter: Is the hon. Member prepared to substantiate that suggestion?

Mr. Bevan: Certainly.

Mr. Haslam: The right hon. Gentleman mentioned the name of Lord Luke. Does he say that Lord Luke was a director of this paper which was propagating the views he mentioned?

Mr. Wedgwood: No, he is not a director. Mr. Isaac Pitman, his son-in-law, and a Mr. Gray are at present directors, and I have no doubt that they are there to watch Lord Luke's interests, without taking any direction in the conduct of the paper. What I am urging is that they should start taking serious direction of the paper now and get rid of the editor, who is the man responsible, and put in his place an editor who can be adjudged to

be a supporter of our war effort and our war aims.

Mr. Erskine Hill: Is the right hon. Gentleman going to allow time for an answer for the Government?

Mr. Wedgwood: I have said all I wanted to say, except that all through these kaleidoscopic changes there appear the figures of Mr. Crocker and Sir Joseph Ball, not as directors of but as connected with "Truth." I understand these people are also on the Swinton Committee. It is improper that people in any sort of way connected with this matter should be on a committee which has the decision as to whether "Truth" should continue to exist. There is a great deal of secrecy about the committee, but if there is any connection between people who are connected with this paper and the Swinton Committee it is bound to create an unsatisfactory feeling throughout the country. I am more anxious to get the attitude of the Swinton Committee towards the Fascists and towards the Jews changed than even to get a change in the editorship of "Truth." That will give us a decent national line, and effective support of this Government. Better that than even to see the paper suppressed.

The Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Peake): The right hon. Gentleman who has raised this question, of which he gave notice last week, has left me totally inadequate time in which to reply to the observations he has made. A great many of the questions he has gone into are, of course, quite irrelevant from the Home Office point of view. He has raised the whole question of the control of the Press in peace and in war. Should the Press be privately owned? Should the shareholdings in newspapers be public? Should the owners of newspapers dictate policy to their editors? All those questions are very interesting, but from the Home Office point of view, they are totally irrelevant. The right hon. Gentleman asked the Home Secretary last week whether He would take action against this paper. I can only say that this paper is, of course, read in the Home Office, as are many other papers, and my right hon. Friend can see no good ground for taking action against "Truth" under the Defence Regulations at the present time. The House is aware that before action can be taken to


suppress a newspaper under the Defence Regulations there has to be
the systematic publication of matter which is in the opinion of the Home Secretary calculated to foment opposition to the prosecution to a successful conclusion of any war in which His Majesty is engaged.
In the statement which the Home Secretary made when the "Daily Worker" was suppressed he stated clearly the principles by which he should be guided. He said:
This action has been taken not because of any change or development in the character of these publications, nor because of the appearance therein of some particular article or articles, but because it is and has been for a long period the settled and continuous policy of these papers to try to create in their readers a state of mind in which they will refrain from co-operating in the national war effort and may become ready to hinder that effort. It is my firm conviction that freedom of the Press should be maintained even at the risk that it may sometimes be abused. If in newspapers which share the national determination to win the war there is occasionally published matter which, though not intended to be harmful to the national interest, may nevertheless have a prejudicial effect, I recognise that the inestimable advantage of maintaining a free Press far outweighs the risks which such freedom may sometimes entail."— [OFFICIAL REPORT, 22nd January, 1941; col. 186, Vol. 368.]

The House will also recall that the Government gave a pledge on this matter earlier in the war when it was stated:
It is the intention of His Majesty's Government to preserve in all essentials a free Parliament and a free Press.
It would be quite easy, in respect of a number of newspapers, by culling excerpts carefully over a long period, as the right hon. Gentleman did, to make out a case for saying that a newspaper is affecting the national war effort and ought to be suppressed. The right hon. Gentleman no doubt chose, from his point of view, the best extracts which he could, and I must confess that upon my mind, and I think upon the minds of hon. Members in the House, the effect of those extracts amounted in toto to something very small. But I would say in conclusion—and I wish I had rather more time in which to develop the point—that I am very greatly surprised that the right hon. Gentleman, who has been such a valiant champion of freedom of speech both in and out of Parliament throughout his whole career, should have brought forward a subject of this kind on the Adjournment.

Question, "That this House do now adjourn," put, and agreed to.